such a charm over the brow of youth, are impeded by whatever obstructs
the flow of blood from the heart to its many organs. In Greece, where
the elements of beauty and grace were earliest comprehended, and most
happily illustrated, the fine symmetry of the form was left untortured.

But the influence of this habit on beauty is far less to be deprecated
than its effects upon health. That pulmonary disease, affections of the
heart, and insanity, are in its train, and that it leads some of our
fairest and dearest to Fashion's shrine to die, is placed beyond a doubt
by strong medical testimony.

Dr. Mussey, whose "_Lectures on Intemperance_" have so forcibly arrested
the attention of the public, asserts that "greater numbers annually die
among the female sex, in consequence of tight-lacing, than are destroyed
among the other sex by the use of spirituous liquors in the same time."
Is it possible that thousands of our own sex, in our own native land,
lay, with their own hand, the foundation of diseases that destroy
life!--and are willing, for fashion's sake, to commit suicide!

Dr. Todd, the late Principal of the Retreat for the Insane, in
Connecticut, to whom science and philanthropy are indebted, adduces many
instances of the fearful effects of obstructed circulation on the brain.
Being requested by the instructress of a large female seminary to
enforce on her pupils the evils of compression in dress, he said, with
that eloquence of eye and soul, which none, who once felt their
influence, can ever forget: "The whole course of your studies, my dear
young ladies, conspires to impress you with reverence for antiquity.
Especially do you turn to Greece for the purest models in the fine arts,
and the loftiest precepts of philosophy. While sitting, as disciples, at
the feet of her men of august minds, you may have sometimes doubted how