"_Wasp Waists._"--This is what I heard a fine-looking though
tobacco-sucking gentleman utter, as with his companion he passed two young
and fashionably dressed ladies on the street recently.
[Illustration: HOW WASP WAISTS ARE MADE.]
So I fell into a reverie, in which I called up the image of a fat, jolly
old lady whom I knew as my "grandmarm." She had a waist half as large
around as a flour barrel.
"O, horrid creature!" exclaims a modern belle.
But, then, my grandmother could breathe! You cannot--_only half breathe_!
And my "grandmarm" had a fresh color to her cheeks and lips, and a good
bust, till she was over sixty years of age, and she lived to be almost a
hundred years old. You won't live to see a third of that time. Did our
grandfathers or mothers die of consumption? O, no. Still they lived
well--mine did. When I see a modern mince pie, it quickly carries my mind
back to childhood days, when I think of a little boy who thought
grandmothers were gotten up expressly to furnish nice cakes and mince pies
for the rising generation.
O, but she was jolly--and so were her pies!
An Irish blunderer once said, "Ah, ye don't see any of the young gals of
the present day fourscore and tin years ould;" and probably we should not
see many of our present "crop" if _we_ should survive that age.
Drs. A., B., and C., tell me how many ladies who visit your offices can
take a full, deep breath. "Not one in a score or two!" So I thought.
[Illustration: A CONSUMPTIVE WAIST. CAUSE, TIGHT CORSETS.]
[Illustration: NON-CONSUMPTIVE WAIST. NEVER WORE CORSETS.]
Lungs which are not used in full become weak and tender. Do you have sore
places about your chest? Practise inflating your lungs with pure air
through the nostrils,--where God first breathed the breath of life,--and
give room for the lungs to expand, and the "sore places" will all
disappear after a time. See my article on breathing. Put it into steady,
moderate practice, and the result will be beneficial beyond all
conception.