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In China, the feet of the women are distorted on a systematic principle. It appears that in that country the perfection of beauty in a female foot is a dumpy ball, not unlike a hoof. How such a horrible deformity should have come to be viewed as a trait of beauty, has never been explained. Like follies of fashion in our own country, it sets reason and investigation alike at defiance. All that can be learned of it is, that it is not of great antiquity. There was a time when the feet of the Chinese women were permitted to grow freely, like those of the other sex. Some place this period at the distance of eight or nine hundred years ago; and it is at least certain that the custom is several centuries old. As nearly all monstrosities of fashion originate in the court, it probably began with some peculiarity in the feet of a lady of fashion and influence at the court of the Chinese emperor; and, first followed from slavish adulation, it may have continued from a mere vitiation of taste.

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When or how this custom commenced is of little consequence. It is sufficient for us to know that it exists as a wide-spread usage; and that, with the enduring nature of all Chinese customs, it is likely to continue long without abatement. accounts presented by medical and other travellers of the process of distortion and its results, are almost too distressing for perusal.

Soon after the birth of a female infant of the higher ranks, the mother addresses herself to the duty of compressing the feet. This is done by folding the toes down on the sole of the foot, and binding them in this position by a strong band passed over them, which keeps the whole foot as in a vice. Every day the binding is renewed, but is never relaxed except at the moment of dressing with fresh bandages. The compression, of course, produces great agony, but that does not cause any intermission of the torture. The child may cry, faint, go into convulsions, or die; all, however, is unheeded. As the parts continue to grow, notwithstanding the pressure, the pain is not momentary, but lasting. For five or six years a torture is endured which tends to impair the temper of the child. In proportion as the foot ceases to grow, the pain diminishes; and when the mutilation in the fifth or sixth year is completed, the feet are found to be two crushed and wrinkled stumps. The toes are shrivelled and pressed into the sole; and the upper part of the foot-the top of the arch-is a soft mass, in which the leg seems to be inserted. When the unfortunate female who has been so treated attains maturity, her feet are not longer than from three to five inches: she in fact walks, or rather waddles, on a pair of stumps. Feet of this small stumpy form are considered to be very beautiful. "A foot two inches in length," says a writer on this subject, "is the idol of a Chinaman, on which he lavishes the most precious epithets which nature and language can supply. But its beauties altogether ideal; for, when stripped of its gay investments,

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it is a piteous mass of lifeless integument, which resembles the skin of a washerwoman's hand after it has undergone a maceration in soap and water. But fancy has played her part so well, that this piece of ruined nature, which is seldom or perhaps never seen by men, is treated as the prime essential element of all feminine beauty. The foot of a native woman,' said I to a Chinese acquaintance, 'is very handsome, so that it is a great pity to spoil it.' He smiled with much satisfaction at the compliment, but would only allow that it interfered with the gait. They cannot walk so well,' was the amount of his concession in my favour. He was so blessed as not to know the real state of this organ, and therefore his admiration had no alloy. To show that there is something like masonic secrecy about this small foot, I need only mention that on one occasion the servant, when her mistress proceeded to unwind the bandages, blushed, and turned her face to the wall. In walking, the body of females reels from side to side, so as never to appear upright. When seen in the streets, they are generally supported by a little girl, or have the assistance of a walking-stick."

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This odious custom of compressing the feet prevails principally among the higher classes in China. It is not followed by families of the Tartar race settled in the country; nor is it much practised by the lower order of people. In the middle and more humble classes, it is not unusual for one daughter of a family to be so treated, with the view of increasing her matrimonial value.

DISTORTION BY TIGHT LACING.

In one of the annual reports of the Registrar-General on births and deaths, the following passage occurs:-"In the year 1839, thirty-one thousand and ninety Englishwomen died of consumption. This high mortality is ascribed partly to the in-door life they lead, partly to the compression preventing the free expansion of the chest by costume." By this report, which is not inclusive of Scotland and Ireland, it would appear that perhaps not fewer than fifteen thousand lives are annually sacrificed amongst us through the agency of one distinct error in costume-tight lacing. In North America, this folly of fashion is carried by females to as great a height as it is in the United Kingdom; and this, we presume, will add a few more thousands of lives to the general sacrifice. No species of voluntary distortion that we are acquainted with, is productive of such a disastrous loss of health and life as is caused by this monstrous practice. The compression of the heads among the Indians is not usually injurious to health, however much it may add to hideousness of appearance. And the compression of the female feet in China, though causing fretfulness in infancy, is not said to impair the constitutional energy.

* Langdon's Ten Thousand Things Relating to China.

It has been left for Englishwomen to discover and practise the most deadly of all the means of personal discomfort and distortion.

The object of tight lacing is the same as that given for compressing the Chinese female foot-an idea of securing beauty in form. A small waist is thought beautiful, elegant, the perfection of figure. This idea originates in no correct perception of beauty, and is in violation of nature. It has its foundation in caprice and ignorance. In all probability it began with some fashionable lady of the court, whose waist was admired for its handsome shape; and, to have waists equally neat, all the other ladies would commence lacing and squeezing themselves, without any regard to proportion or bulk of figure. Be this as it may, tight lacing has been followed as a fashion by all classes of females, from the highest to the lowest; and now it may be spoken of as a universal frenzy, ruinous to comfort, and destructive of health. How it should be injurious, may be understood from the following explanations.

The interior of the body consists of two cavities, one above the other. In the uppermost, termed the chest, are contained

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Fig. 2.

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the heart and lungs, as marked in the annexed engraving, fig. 2. H is the heart; RL the right lung; and L L the left lung. The use of the heart is to act as a force-pump for sending the blood through the various channels of the body. The lungs are the organs of breathing, and contain a vast number of minute cells and tubes, into which the air is drawn at every inspiration. The cavity of the chest is separated from the cavity beneath by the diaphragm, marked DD in the engraving. In the lower

cavity are the stomach, marked Stm.; and the intestines, marked III; these constituting the alimentary organs, or organs for

receiving and digesting the food. Immediately over the stomach is the liver, marked Liv.; and the duty of which is to secrete the bile. Within this cavity there are some other vital organs, not expressed in the engraving. The whole of this beautiful apparatus, for circulating the blood, inhaling and expiring air, receiving and digesting food, and otherwise keeping the animal economy in motion, may be observed to be neatly packed together, leaving no space unoccupied or to spare. Neither, however, is there any undue pressure of one part on another. All the parts are provided with exactly that degree of room which they require no more, and no less. On considering this ingenious arrangement, the mind must be struck with the folly, if not impiety, of any kind of undue compression from without. We can see at a glance that pressure must have the effect of forcing the organs out of their proper place, and of crushing them on each other. This crushing of course prevents freedom of action; the heart cannot get properly wrought, the lungs cannot freely breathe, the blood does not circulate healthily, the stomach cannot rightly digest, and the liver and other viscera are put equally out of sorts the whole machine is deranged.

The internal parts of the body, thus briefly referred to, are, as every one must know, sustained by a framework of bonescomposed of the vertebræ or back-bone, the shoulder and breast bones, and the ribs. External compression, in the first place, discomposes and distorts this system of bones. In the annexed engravings, figures 3 and 4, are shown the appearance of the ribs and chest before and after compression. In fig. 3, which repre

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sents the frame in its natural state, it will be observed that the ribs increase in the bulge or expansion from the higher to the lower, affording room for the heart and lungs in the chest, and space beneath for the liver, stomach, and bowels. By lacing the waist tightly, we produce the effect observable in fig. 4. The

lower ribs are forced in upon the liver and stomach; and these members, to escape the torture imposed on them, press partly down upon the bowels, and partly up against the diaphragm, which in turn presses against the heart and lungs. Although the lacing may be relaxed at night, the repeated daily pressure gives a permanent set to the bones, and the ribs are found irrevocably distorted-tapering towards a point where they should bulge out, and bulging out where they should taper.

This alteration of shape in the ribs is the earliest and least distortion. Other and greater calamities to the bony structure ensue. Jammed out of their natural position, the heart and lungs press upon and make an effort to expand the chest and shoulder bones: this effort is partly restrained by the external pressure; and there are thus two pressures contending against each other. Nature outraged, has her revenge: one shoulder be comes higher than the other, and the spine is bent. Distortion is also going on beneath; very frequently one hip becomes larger than the other. The whole body is twisted. As our own testimony on this subject is of little value, we beg to present that of an able medical writer, Mr Samuel Hare. "The usual mode of attack in this species of disease [spinal curvature, represented in fig. 5] is as follows:-After long-continued

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Fig. 5.

pressure upon the chest and abdomen, occasioned by the instrumentality of tight lacing, a perceptible deterioration of health ensues, the rapidity of which will depend much upon the previous state of the constitution. This derangement of health naturally produces a softening of the bones, accompanied frequently by disordered functions of the lungs, in which the heart and abdominal viscera participate; and unless arrested in its progress, deformity will be estab

lished, producing a scene which terminates in suffering and calamity, and, often through neglect, in premature dissolution. A very little reflection will show the reader the mode in which lateral curvature of the spine is generally produced. The upper part of the stays are brought close under the arms, and being

*Practical Observations on the Causes and Treatment of Curvature of the Spine. By Samuel Hare, Surgeon. Longman and Co. 1838.

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