forced the surface flesh up across the region of the diaphragm and caused rolls of flesh to accumulate between that point and the breasts. These corsets also pressed sharply across the muscles of the back at the waist line, far women did not wish to sacrifice their inherited idea of small waists, which the new straight front would have required had it not curved in abnormally at the waist across the back. This type of corset gave to its wearers more breathing room than fashionable women had known for years, and it was a hopeful sign of our progress toward better conditions to observe that, with the variations of fashion during the past seven or eight years, we were not asked to return to the curved front corset worn for many generations; and the physiological critics were inclined to the belief that the evolution of the corset was toward those of saner and better designs.
Through all the centuries and in spite of the anathemas of the church, the edicts of state, the counsel of the physicians and the ridicule of the humorous, the form and wearing of corsets have been controlled by fashion; but fashion answers not to reason or common sense, it only pampers to the desire to attract the envious or admiring attention of others. As soon as a mode becomes common the fashionable seek something for the time being new and different. Corsets have been made to follow the varying fashions in dress. Fashionable dress demanded small waists; corsets were made to constrict the waist regardless of physiological consequences—even unto the death of the fair devotee who ware them. Fashionable dress also demanded large hips and corsets were made as in illustration 7, with very prominent hips and Nature's deficiency in that respect supplied with padding. Fashionable dress suddenly took a notion to be as straight and scant from shoulder to foot as an Indian's blanket, and we were
