[3] Body and Mind, 2d Ed., p. 300.
[4] Referring to New York, Boston, or places on same isotherm.
[5] I have never seen the actual figures given on this subject, and in the interest of positive science, therefore, subjoin the following, which any one can easily verify for herself. The following articles, viz., merino and cotton drawers, flannel skirt, a light Balmoral, a short, light hoop, corsets, and dress-skirts, over and under, weighed 9lbs. 4oz. Avoirdupois. It must be also remembered that this pressure is not regularly exerted, but on account of the swinging and swaying motion of the skirts, is applied now in one direction, now in another. The dress weighed was not of the heaviest material, but of fine old-fashioned merino, or what is known this year as Drap d'été.
[6] Lest this should seem to imply that women should not be employed as bookkeepers, I would call attention to the fact that it presents practically no obstacle whatever to their employment. For instance, one of the largest wholesale and retail firms in St. Louis has for years employed a woman bookkeeper, and she has never been expected to stand. Low instead of high desks are in their counting-room, and low chairs are also found there. The books, bills, etc., are convenient to her hand, and no difficulty whatever is experienced. It may, perhaps, be a pertinent question to ask, in what consists the advantage of a high stool and a high desk over a low chair and a low desk, and whether it takes any more time to rise from a chair, than to swing down from a stool.
[7] In a most valuable and instructive article on the Comparative Health of American and English Women, soon to appear in Scribner's Monthly, Miss Mary E. Beedy, an American woman who has had unusually large opportunities for knowing English girls, states that this is exactly the feeling with which the English girl and woman regard their daily walk. I call especial attention to this forthcoming article because it abounds in accurately observed and skilfully generalized facts; and because it is most suggestive on the whole subject of the health of women, and the causes of its failure.
[8] “The change of character at this period is not by any means limited to the appearance of the sexual feelings and their sympathetic ideas; but when traced to its ultimate reach, will be found to extend to the highest feelings of mankind—social, moral, and even religious. In its lowest sphere, as a mere animal instinct, it is clear that the sexual appetite forces the most selfish person out of the little circle of self-feeling into a wider feeling of family sympathy, and a rudimentary moral feeling.”—Maudsley, Body and Mind, 2d Edition, p. 31.
[9] Maudsley: Body and Mind, Am. Ed., p. 304 et seq.
[10] Dr. Karl Rosenkranz, Doctor of Theology, and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Königsberg.
[11] I quote again from Rosenkranz, because I cannot improve upon his words: “Modesty is the feeling of the primitive harmony of nature and spirit, and it is very decidedly active in children, however unconstrained they are with regard to nature. True modesty is as far removed from coarseness as from prudery. Coarseness takes a delight in making the relation of the sexes the subject of ambiguous, witty, shameless talking and jesting, and it is just as blamable as prudery, which externally affects an innocence no longer existing therein. Here is, consequently, the point in which physical education must pass over into moral education, and where the purity of the heart must hallow the body.”
[12] A friend of undoubted accuracy testifies to a case where acute dysmenorrhœa and menorrhagia, begun in over-excitement and tight clothing, and aggravated by the very cause above-mentioned, gradually yielded to regular and nutritious food, a rational mode of dressing, regular sleep, and to the regular brain-work which gave sufficient employment to the over-excited imagination.