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FIGURE TRAINING.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE FAMILY DOCTOR.

SIR.--I have just read in your interesting paper of the 23rd :February a letter on figure training. "F. L. ]',I." tells of years devoted to this figure training. I shoJld like to know what is the aim and object of it all? and when a tiny waist h, obt!1.ined, what advantage it is ?

No one would be so absurd as to assert that a figure like an hour·glass is beautiful. What painter ever painted his women with 15 or 16-inch waists 'I In everyday life people do not admire or rave about women with waists of that ,ize. They may talk and wonder and laugh at them, but they do not admire.

It may not be wrong to suppose that it is with the object of getting a husband that girls submit to such distortion (for no other known reason would they do so): but do the means obtain the end 1 Are girls with such" dainty" waists sought out and married before those whose waists are sensible 'I It seems to me that a man who would marry a girl with a 16-inch waist would be either a fool or a madman. Anyho\\', he could have no idea of the misery he was preparing for himself aud hIS children, should he have any.

It is awful to think how the figure training of the mothers might react on the children, for in these days of health lectures people are beginning to realise that they may not play pranks with Nature with impunity: she will surely avenge herself. Again, would a girl whose youth had been devoted to figure training be a suitable helpmeet and companion for an intelligent man? It is not unreason~ able to suppose that her interest in art" literature, social improvement, and philanthropy would be ill inverse proportion to that taken in her waist.

were her husband or children ill, her corset would not let her stoop over their sick-bed or raise them in her arms. To visit the poor and needy would be impossible; she could not take long walks or climb long stairs to their garret.

Truly a charming wife! Wordsworth spoke of a "perfect woman nobly planned"; but it appears that we were not content with women of that type. We have improved on the shape that God made and saw that it was good.

Let us thank heaven that all the mother, of England have not set up the hour-glass as the "glass of fashion and the mould of form" for their daughter,s to copy; and let us hope, for the sake of our country and of humanity, that those who have will decrease in number year by year till the place that knew them knows them no more.--Sincerely yours,

ESNIE CHALLIN

to "F. L. M"; from Esnie Challin.

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