Punch: Punch (57.1869)

162 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [October 2.3. 1869.

MEMBERS OF A LEARNED SOCIETY ON AN EXCURSION.

Learned Gentleman " We are now near the Remains of a Roman Wall, and on examining the Ground last Year, it

was found to be-"

Appreciative Native cuts in—" Barley, Sir ; and Beans the Year afore."

THE TORMENTS OF TIGHT-LACING.

Dear Mr. Punch,

Being a young lady, of course, you know, I must dress in the
fashion, and now that, small waists have come in 1 am obliged to lace
myself as tightly as I can, so as not to look ridiculous. My stays hurt
terribly at first, they are so stiff and bony. Even now it is as much as
I can do to sit through dinner without fainting. But I mean to per-
severe, and hope in a few days to measure an inch less, though I sadly
fear I never shall be able to wear a waist of sixteen inches and a half,
which my modiste says is now considered fashionable. And I am
terribly afraid that what the doctors say is true, for since my dresses
were made tight 1 have felt wretchedly unwed and sadly out of spirits.
My head aches so, you can't think, and my cheeks are, O so pale, and
getting actually yellow. Indeed, my sister tells me that I look a perfect
ftight, but then, you know, she's envious of my having a fine figure.

But the worst is that I feel so cramped and stiffened that I can
hardly stir, and am really quite fatigued with the least possible exertion.
1 used to love a dance and was immensely fond of croquet. But I find
with a pinched waist it's quite impossible to waltz, you get so out of
breath and feel so sick and giddy. And as for playing croquet, why,

she hadn't got a waist as small as mine, and so this is her excuse for
her imitative impudence.

Of course it's very nice to be admired for one's good figure, and of
course I'd rather die than dress out of the fashion. But stays are a
great torture, and deprive one of a number of small comforts and
enjoyments, not to mention one so vulgar as enjoying a nice dinner,
which one has no room to swallow when one's squeezed to sixteen
inches. I know our great great grandmothers were tortured like our-
selves, but croquet wasn't known then, anymore than waltzing. And
as I dearly love all feminine athletic sports like these, I certainly do
hope the fashion will soon change, and that one may wear one's waist
as wide as nature made it.

Until then, believe me, yours, in misery,

A Victim.

To Mr. Layard.

A_nd the womanly soul, turning sick with disgust,
Tried to force her way out from her Serpentine crust."

Thomas Rood.

Make the Serpentine wholesome for roach, dace, carp, barbel,
you can't hit a hardTnockTof stoop to" pick 7 baTup,°aiad"your dress And merit a statue of Serpentine marble j;
is made so tight you feel afraid of something cracking.

Another of my miseries is that my maid has the impertinence to
follow the new fashion, and is getting quite unfit for work through her
tight-lacing. When 1 tell her to run up-stairs to fetch a pocket-hand-
kerchief, she moves as slow and stiffly as I do myself, and comes down
panting so that she can hardly gasp an answer to my questions. Then
she constantly is getting nasty stitches in her side, and while she j As the wise suggestion season has yet some time to run, a question
stands to do my hair she often feels so faint I have to give her ; of which the discussion will perhaps be pursued is, whether it is not
sal volatile. The chance is too that when I come home from a party, j cruel to open living oysters, and whether they could not be previously
I find that she has gone to bed with a sick headache, leaving poor me j steeped in some anassttietic, which would not render them unpalatable
to retire to rest without the least assistance. Of course, you know, I'm or injurious, and so make them disagree with those partaking of them,
boui.d to give her my old dresses, and she says they'd be of no use it ! as they would if they were eaten with chloroform.

But if you can't do it, pour back the old flood,
Nor poison my children with Serpentine mud.

" A Panic Struck Mother." (Versified)

An TJltrahumane Idea.