TIGHT-LACING. —M.C. writes an interesting but very lengthy letter on Corsets. We can only find space for an extract. — “I have never known any injury to health arising from the use of Corsets, whether tight or otherwise, if the figure be properly fitted. The body has always required some support since the time when men were told to ‘grid up their loins’ for exertion or enterprise. The Greek women had the cestus, or girdle, which they used to draw very tight; this might have been injurious which a well-fitting corset never can be. I could give many anecdotes from my business of success in improving neglected figures – some of them very interesting, as having led to happy results for the ladies themselves – also of ladies fifty, sixty, and seventy years of age, who have retained the elegance of their youthful figure by habitual and careful lacing, but these descriptions would extend my already too long letter to a volume. Let me, however, say a word or two more. My business has taken me several times to Paris and Vienna. I am an enthusiast in my business, and it has been with positively joyous emotions that I have surveyed the superb figures amongst the ladies of the last-named city: it is in Vienna where are to be seen the fullest-developed figures, and slenderest waists – ‘small by degrees and beautifully less‘ sometimes to extreme tenuity. All are there trained to the Corset very early, and waist never enlarges under its gentle pressure. Now, what will the opposers of Corset say to this? for in no place you can see better-complexioned, handsomer, and healthier women than the slender, tight-laced ladies of Vienna. The French system I do not admire. The Parisian ladies are frequently loosely and slovenly dressed when ‘at home; ’ they change every article of dress, even to their stays, when preparing for the promenade or the evening display. It is then that the potent lace is made to do its work, and at such times I have seen and assisted at the extreme of tight-lacing. But this is only for a few hours, and immediately on return home they are loosened and relapse into slovenliness. This would not suit English tastes and habits. All this talk and controversy about Stays and Tight-lacing which every now and then turns up – frequently introduced by those who know nothing of the subject they write about – will have no effect upon the custom. Compression of the female waist never cease, just because a slender waist always has been and always will be considered a great beauty by the opposite sex.”