the time of that story, as will be seen from the following conversation, which was overheard at a wedding in Armenia:—"Doudou, do you notice how stiff and stately Mariamme Hanoum sits in her new polka? Her husband, Baron (Mr.) Cara-bet, who has just returned from Constantinople, has brought her a machine made of whalebone and steel, in which the Franks cage their wives, in order to fill up what is missing, and tone down what is superfluous" The italics are my own, and convey a meaning which appealed to the intellect of Doudou, who replied, glancing at her own very voluminous person. "Wonderful! I wonder if the like is to be found in the Chershi (bazaar); many articles of dress have been lately brought from Europe by one of the shopkeepers."5[1] It is to be hoped, for her own sake, that they were not, for although Mahomedan ladies are by no means free from sanitary crimes, they have hitherto not been guilty of that of tight-lacing. But to return to our own country.
Those persons, for the most part men, who have learnt to appreciate the evils of tight-lacing, have almost invariably been so eager to abolish those evils that they have fallen into an error of judgment, and have sought to do so by entirely abolishing the use of the corset. This has been one, if not the chief, reason of the ill-success with which their laudable efforts have met, for, appealing as they have done to grown-up women, they have appealed
- ↑ 5 "The People of Turkey," by a Consul's Daughter, vol. ii. p. 69.
