American women are becoming the smallest among the civilized
peoples, while the men are among the largest. Our army averaged
larger than the English, French or German. But look at the droves of
school girls, who, at eighteen or twenty years of age, are so small,
that it requires a stretch of the imagination to think of them as
wives or mothers.
In a neighboring state I was trying to find the house of a friend,
and, meeting a little girl, I said:--
"My little girl, will you please tell me where Col. Grant's
residence is?"
"Yes, my little boy; he resides in the second house on the right
hand, my little boy."
Now, as the scales always allude to two hundred and odd whenever I
step on, her remark struck me as sarcastic.
I said at once, lifting my hat, "I hope you will pardon me, I did
not intend any offence."
"All right," said she, "but I thought you were making fun of me, by
calling me 'little girl.'"
"I trust you will believe me when I assure you that nothing was
farther from my mind; but you were so small, I supposed you were a
little girl, and so, without thinking, I called you so; it is so
dark I could not see your face."
"All right, sir; but my husband would have been very angry if he had
heard you call me a little girl."
Born of the same parents, fed at the same table, educated at the
same school, why, in America, does a man weigh fifty pounds more
than a woman?
I know a good many young ladies, very active in the matrimonial
market, who do not weigh more than ninety pounds, and, poor little
silly geese, are squeezing themselves as tight as possible with
corsets.
This petite size can be accounted for. Nothing, to my mind, is
plainer.
Exercise is the great law of development Our girls have no adequate
exercise. Besides, the organs on which growth depends, viz., the
lungs, stomach and liver, are reduced, by the corset, to half the
natural size and activity. These two causes, with living in the
shade, explain the alarming decrease in the size of the average
American woman.