Another evil practice, which some years since prevailed universally, was that of rolling a bandage, three inches in width, and two or three yards in length, round the body of the child. The pain that such a bandage, from its unyielding nature, would occasion, not to speak of its ill effects on the health, may be readily imagined. This bandage was, in fact, a kind of breaking in for the tight lacing, the penalty which most females in this country have had, at some period or other, to undergo.
There is no end of the inconsistencies of children's dress. If, in early infancy, they are buried in long petticoats, no sooner can they walk than the petticoats are so shortened that they scarcely cover the child's back when it stoops. The human race has a wonderful power of accommodating itself to a variety of temperatures and climates; but perhaps it is seldom exposed to greater vicissitudes than in the change from long clothes to the extremely short and full ones that are now fashionable. The very full skirt is not so warm in proportion to its length as one of more moderate fulness; because, instead of clinging round the figure, it stands off from it, and admits the air under it. The former is also heavier than the latter, inasmuch as it contains more material; and the weight of the clothing is a great disadvantage to a child. A sensible medical writer, Dr. John F. South, in an excellent little work entitled “Domestic Surgery,” makes some very judicious observations relative to children's dress. Of the fashion of dressing boys with the tunic reaching to the throat, and trousers, which are both so loose as to offer no impediment to freedom of motion, he approves; but he condemns, in the strongest terms, “the unnatural”—Mr. South remarks he had almost said “atrocious—system to which, in youth, if not in childhood, girls are subjected for the improvement of their figure and gait.”
It is fortunate for the present generation that it is the fashion for the dresses of even little girls to be made as high as the throat; the old fashion of cutting the frock low round the neck, which still exists in what is called “full dress,” is objectionable on more than one account. In the first place, it is objected to on the consideration of health; because the upper part of the chest is not protected from the influence of currents of air, and by this means, as Mr. South observes, the foundation is laid for irritable lungs. In the next place, the dress is generally suffered to fall off the shoulders, and is, in fact, only retained in its place by the tight band about the waist. To avoid the uneasiness occasioned by the pressure of the latter, the child slips its clothes off one shoulder, generally the right, which it raises more than the other; the consequence of this is, that the raised shoulder becomes permanently higher than the other, and the spine is drawn towards the same side. It is said that there is scarcely one English woman in fifty who has not one shoulder higher or thicker than the other; and there appears but little doubt that much of this deformity is to be ascribed to the above-mentioned cause. In confirmation of this opinion, it may be mentioned that the practice of wearing dresses low in the neck is almost peculiar to English girls; French girls, nearly from infancy, wear high dresses, and it is certain that deformity is not so frequent among French women as it is among English.
The discipline of tight lacing is frequently begun so early in life, that the poor victim has little or no recollection of the pain and suffering occasioned by the pressure of the stiff and uncomfortable stays before the frame has become accustomed to them. Those of our readers who were fortunate enough to escape this infliction in early life, and who adopted stiff stays at a more mature age, can bear testimony to the suffering occasioned by them during the first few weeks of their use. “O,” said a girl who put on stiff stays, for the first time, at the age of fourteen or fifteen, “I wish bedtime was come, that I might take off these stiff and uncomfortable stays, they pain me so much.” “Hush, hush!” exclaimed a starch old maiden aunt, shocked at what she thought the indelicacy of the expression which pain had wrung from the poor girl; “you must bear it for a time; you will soon get used to it.” Used to it! Yes, indeed, as the cook said the eels did to skinning, and with, as regards the poor girls, almost as disastrous consequences.
There are three points of view in which tight lacing is prejudicial. It weakens the muscles of the shoulders and chest, which rust, as it were, for want of use; it injures, by pressure, the important organs contained in the chest and trunk; and, lastly, instead of improving the figure, it positively and absolutely deforms it. A waist disproportionately small, compared with the stature and proportions of the individual, is a greater deformity than one which is too large; the latter is simply clumsy; it does not injure the health of the person, while the former is not only prejudicial to health, but to beauty. Were our fair readers but once convinced of this fact, there would be an end of tight lacing; and the good results arising from the abolition of this practice would be evident in the improved health of the next generation.
What a host of evils follow in the steps of tight lacing! Indigestion, hysteria, spinal distortion, consumption, liver complaints, disease of the heart, cancer, early death!—these are a few of them, and enough to make both mothers and daughters tremble. It is an aggravation of the evil that is brought upon us frequently by the agency of a mother—of her upon whose affection and experience a child naturally relies in all things, and whose lamentable ignorance of what constitutes beauty of form, as well as her subjection to the thraldom of fashion, is the prolific source of so much future misery to her unsuspecting daughter.
Education is the order of the day; but surely that education must be very superficial and incomplete, of which the study of the economy of the human form, its various beauties, and the wonderful skill with which it was created, form no part. A girl spends several years in learning French, Italian, and German, which may be useful to her should she meet with French, Italians, or Germans, or should she visit the continent; she spends three, four, five, and sometimes six hours a day, in practising on the piano, frequently without having any real talent for this accomplishment, while she is kept in utter ignorance of that which is of vital consequence not only to herself, but to her future offspring, namely, a knowledge of what constitutes true beauty, and contributes to the preservation of health, and, we may also add, of good humor and happiness; for it is one of the evils attending ill health, that it frequently induces a fretful and irritable state of mind. Instead of the really useful knowledge of the economy of the frame, and the means of preserving health, girls are taught the constrained attitudes and the artificial deportment of the dancing master. The remark of Sir Joshua Reynolds on this subject has been often quoted. He said, “All the motions of children are full of grace; affectation and distortion come in with the dancing master.” To dancing itself there is not the slightest objection; it is at once an agreeable and healthy occupation, and it affords a pleasing and innocent recreation. The pleasure which most children take in it, in spite of the “exercises” which they are compelled to practise, proves, we think, its utility.
The treatment of the feet is on a par with that of the rest of the body. The toes are thrust close together into a shoe, the shape of the sole of which does not resemble that of the foot. It is generally narrower than the foot, which, therefore, hangs over the sides. The soles of children's shoes are, moreover, made alike on both sides, whereas the inside should be nearly straight, and the width of the sole should correspond exactly with that of the foot. Boots, which have been so fashionable of late years, are very convenient, and have a neat appearance, but they are considered to weaken the ankle, because the artificial support which they give to that part prevents the full exercise of the muscles, which waste from want of use. Shoes should be cut short in the quarter, because the pressure necessary to keep such shoes as are now worn on the feet will, in this case, be on the instep instead of the toes, which will, by this arrangement, have more room.
We shall conclude our observations on children's dress, considered in a sanitary point of view, in the words of Mr. South. “If, then, you wish your children, girls especially, to have the best chance of health, and a good constitution, let them wear flannel next their skin, and woollen stockings in winter; have your girls' chests covered to the collar bones, and their shoulders in, not out of their dresses, if you would have them straight; and do not confine their chests and compress their digestive organs by bone stays, or interfere with the free movement of their chests by tight belts, or any other contrivance, if you desire their lungs should do their duty, upon which so mainly depends the preservation of health.”—Sharpe's London Magazine.