Our Girls Part 3

"Why, my daughter, you cannot have a good voice even, unless you stand erect.

"The Creator has fitted this little vocal apparatus in the throat to a certain att.i.tude of the body.

"The vocal apparatus of a cow is so fixed, that when her backbone is horizontal, she can do her best bellowing. If she were to stand on her hind legs, and stick her nose directly up towards the sky, she couldn't half bellow.

"The vocal apparatus in a girl's throat is fitted, not to a horizontal spine, but to a perpendicular one. The portion of the spine in the neck determines, mostly, the action of the music box in the throat.

"If you drop your-chin down on your chest, bending your neck, and then try to sing, you will find at once that the vocal box is all out of shape. Go to the opera and observe the singers. When they wish to make a particularly loud or fine sound, they don't put the chin down in the pit of the stomach, but they draw it back close to the neck, and hold the upper part of the spine, and, indeed, every part of the spine, in a n.o.ble, erect att.i.tude. No, my dear Mary, you can not even speak or sing well without attending to my volume on the subject of the chin. Need I say again, that only in this upright position of the body can your lungs and heart find room to do their great and vital work? Need I say, that if you allow your head and shoulders to fall forward, and the organs of the chest to fall down on the organs of the abdomen, the stomach and liver and all the other organs in your abdominal cavity will be displaced, crowded and trammeled? My dear j.a.panese missionary, I have given you the most important rule of health, and if you observe it during your life among the j.a.ps, it will do wonders in preserving your health and strength.

IMPORTANT HELP IN LEARNING TO WALK.

You are in haste to become a queen? The ambition is a n.o.ble one. You can hurry the change by another practice, which I will describe.

A charming lady of the grand, old-fashioned pattern, bore herself like an empress at eighty-six. I ventured to ask her:--

"Madam, what was the source of this remarkable carriage of your person?" She replied:--

"During my young life I carried a large book on my head one or two hours every day. My mother had been taught the practice in an English school, and she transmitted it to her daughters."

Some years ago there was devised a pretty iron crown, in three parts, which has been much used for this purpose. The first part, which rests upon the head, weighed nine pounds; when an iron ring was placed inside of this, it weighed eighteen pounds, and when the second one was added, the weight was twenty-seven pounds. This device was ornamental and convenient. But, while the crown is the best thing; any weight will do. A bag of corn or beans may be employed, A book will answer very well. I have frequently seen books used. You can use any large book of no value,--say a large law book,--and you will find that the effort to retain it on the head will secure a perfectly balanced, accurate movement of all the muscles of the body. Whatever weight is employed, let it be carried upon the top of the head, holding the chin close to the neck, thirty minutes in the morning, and about the same time before lying down at night. In this connection let me say that the use of thick pillows tends to produce a curve in the neck. The pillows should be hard and thin. I am glad to see that hair pillows of moderate size are being generally introduced.

Let me explain the way in which carrying a load upon the head helps the spine into an erect posture. The spine is composed of twenty- four separate bones, which do not lie upon one another, but are separated by cushions of elastic cartilage. Suppose the thickness of these cushions to be a quarter of an inch. When the spine is erect, they are of the same thickness all around. When the spine is bent sidewise, say towards the right, the elastic cushions become thinner on that side, and if the bending is decided, the edges of the spinal bones themselves will nearly touch, while the ma.s.s of elastic or india-rubber substance will be pressed over to the left side. Now suppose that one follows an occupation requiring this position of the spine. After a time, unless pains are taken to counterbalance the mischievous influence of the occupation, these india-rubber cushions between the spinal bones will become fixed in this wedge- like shape, being thin on the right side and thick on the left side.

Now suppose, instead of bending sidewise, one bends forward, as nine persons in ten do, exactly the same thing takes place in these elastic, rubber cushions, only that the rubber is pushed backward, and the spine bones come together in front.

When the chin is drawn back close to the neck, and the cushions are brought into their natural equality of thickness all around, if, at the same moment, a considerable weight is placed upon the head to press hard upon the spinal cushions, much will be done in a little time, to fix them in this natural shape. It requires but a few months of this management to induce a very striking change in the att.i.tude of the spine.

Many years ago, when my wife was an invalid, we spent three winters in the South. The plantation negro was a shambling, careless, uncouth creature; but occasionally we saw a negro whose bearing suggested a recent occupancy of one of the kingly thrones in Africa.

After a little we came to understand the source of this peculiarity.

These negroes, of the erect, lofty pattern, were engaged in "toting"

loads upon their heads.

Everywhere, in certain large districts of Italy, one is struck with the singular carriage of the water-carriers, who bring from the mountain springs, great tubs of water on their heads.

How often we see German girls bringing into town great loads of sticks on their heads. And we never look at them, if we are thoughtful, without contrasting their proud, erect carriage, with the drooping shoulders, projecting shoulder blades, stuck-out chins, and general slip-shoddiness of our wives and daughters.

THE LANGUAGE OF DRESS.

The dress of a French peasant tells you at once of his place in society. Throughout Europe the dress may be taken as the exponent of the wearer's position. This is as true of women as of men. For good reasons, the language of dress is not so definite and explicit in America. But even here we may judge very correctly, in most cases, by the every-day dress, of the position of the wearer.

The social character and relations of women, as a cla.s.s, in any country, may be clearly inferred from certain peculiarities of their dress.

For example, we are in Constantinople. If, in a moment, we could be set down in that city, and not know where we were, would any of us doubt the language of that veil over woman's face? Would anybody suppose her to be a citizen? Would anybody suppose she belonged to herself?

Leaving Constantinople, let us visit an old-time fashionable social gathering in Vienna. Women enter the ball-room. They are dressed in gauze so thin that you can see their skins all over their persons.

Would any of us mistake the language of that kind of dress? Would any of us be in doubt about their relations to men?

Come to America to-day. We attend a social gathering. Women appear with their vital organs squeezed down to one-half the natural size, their arms and busts naked, while their trails are so long that, whenever they turn round, they are obliged to use their hands to push them out of the way. As we all comprehend, at a glance, the meaning of the veils in Constantinople, and the nudity of the women in Vienna, so we all infer the position of woman in America from these peculiarities of her dress.

I read thus: The compressed vital organs and the enc.u.mbered feet mean, that women are dependent and helpless. Having but little use for breath and locomotion, by a law of nature, they cramp the instruments of breath and locomotion. While the nudity of the arms and bust signifies a slavery to man's pa.s.sions. No one supposes that when woman becomes a citizen, and man's equal, she will compress her lungs, fetter her legs, or appeal to his pa.s.sions by any immodest exposure of her person.

LOW NECK AND SHORT SLEEVES.

As I have said but little of the "low neck and short sleeves," I want to add a word in this connection. Many a modest woman appears at a party with her arms nude, and so much of her chest exposed that you can see nearly half of the mammal gland.

Many a modest mother permits her daughters to make this model-artist exhibition of themselves.

One beautiful woman said, in answer to my complaints, "You shouldn't look."

"But," I replied, "do you not adjust your dress in this way on purpose to give us a chance to look?"

She was greatly shocked at my way of putting it.

"Well," I said, "this a.s.surance is perfectly stunning. You strip yourselves, go to a public party, parade yourselves for hours in a glare of gas-light, saying to the crowd, 'Look here, gentlemen,' and then you are shocked because we put your unmistakable actions into words."

In discussing this subject before an audience of ladies in this city the other evening, I said:--

"Ladies, suppose I had entered this hall with my arms and bust bare, what would you have done? You would have made a rush for the door, and, as you jostled against each other in hurrying out, you would have exclaimed to each other, 'Oh! the unconscionable scalawag!' May I ask if it is not right that we should demand of you as much modesty as you demand of us?"

But you exclaim, "Custom! it is the custom, and fashion is everything!"

If you could know the history of the "low neck and short sleeves,"

how, and for what purpose they were introduced, you would as soon join the company of the "unfortunates," as to make this exhibition of your persons.

As much as I desire to live, so much do I long, by this book, to help my country-women to a higher and purer life. Cherishing this hope in my heart of hearts, and knowing that nothing but truth can, in the long run, prevail, I have read this discussion of dress over and over again, and asked myself, and asked my wife and my sister, if the statements I have made are quite true, and if they are made in the proper spirit.

Upon reading the preceding pages upon "The Language of Dress" with my wife and sister, they say:

"These statements are just and true, and greatly need to be uttered;" but my wife says, "I think you ought to say very plainly, that a great many pure-minded women dress with 'low neck and short sleeves,' without an impure thought, and simply because it is the fashion."

I have no doubt of it, and thought I had said as much. Indeed, have I not been careful to state that I was discussing the language of dress, and not the conscious purpose of each individual wearer. I should never forgive myself if I thoughtlessly and unnecessarily wounded the feelings of the thousands of young women who will, I trust, read this volume.

But let me add, that I could not pardon myself; and the brave, earnest women who may read these pages would not pardon me, if I discussed this vital subject in a shilly-shally, easy-going, disengenuous manner. If I can effect a sure and permanent lodgment of vital truths in your minds, and, in my manner of doing it, should, for the time being, provoke your anger, I am content.

This exposure of the naked bosom before men, in the most public places, belongs not to the highest type of Christian civilization, but to those dark ages when women sought nothing higher than the gratification of the pa.s.sions of man, and were content to be mere slaves and toys.

Boston contains its proportion of the refined women of the country.

We have here a few score of the old families, inheriting culture and wealth, and who can take rank with the best. A matron who knows their habits, a.s.sures me that she never saw a member of one of these families in "low neck and short sleeves."

In the future free and Christian America, the very dress of woman will proclaim a high, pure womanhood. And that dress will be an American costume. We shall then discard the costumes devised by the dissolute capitals of Europe.

What a strange spectacle we witness in America to-day. Free, bravo, American women hold out to the world the bible of social, political and religious freedom; and, anon, we see them down on their knees waiting the arrival of a steamer, from France, to learn how they may dress their bodies for the next month.