Abd-El-Kader [pp. 732-733]

1732 i~~~~~~~o~~~1)d-~~~~~Kader. [OCTOBER,~~~~~~~~~~~~~
competent to the vigorous circulation of the blood.
Hence every portion of the system suffers-the
brain and nerves not excepted, they depending, like
other organs, on the arterial blood for their health
and power of action. Even the nerves of the
organs subjected to pressure are mechanically injured. Since the introduction of corsets, as an
article of dress, diseases of the heart, among females, are much more frequent than formerly, and
they have been traced to that cause in innumerable instances. Cases of the kind could be easily
cited. Respecting schirrous and cancerous affections of the breasts, in women advanced in life, the
same is true. Those complaints are far more prevalent now than they were before the present
ruinous style of lacing.
From the foregoing view of their destructive
effects on the fernale system, added to another,
which motives of delicacy forbid me to mention,
it is neither unjust nor extravagant, to say of corsets, that they threaten a degeneracy of the human
race: and were they worn by all females, as they
are by many, they would as certainly produce it,
as an impaired fruit-tree yields faded firuit-and
pn the same ground. The descendants of tightcorsetting mnothers will Lever become the luminaries and leaders of the world. The mothers of
Alexander and Hannibal, Caesar and Napoleon,
never distorted their persons by such a practice.
Nor is the whole mischief of those articles yet
summed up.
The straightness of the spinal column depends
on the strength of the muscles that support it. But
those muscles are enfeebled by the pressure of
corsets. Hence the spine bends and becomes distorted. Instances of crooked spine have been
fearfully multiplied in the fashionable female circles of Europe and America since the beginning
pf the present century; while in Greece, Turkey,
Persia, Arabia, and other parts of Asia, as well as
in Africa, where no tight formns of dress are thought
of, it is almoQ,t unknown. Nor does it appear
among our own countrywomen, whose persons are
suffered to retain the shape which God intended
for them. This breach of his law, therefore, inflicts the penalty incurred by the fault.
It appears, from actual computation, that of the
females, who have been accustomed, from early
life, to tight corsetting, nearly one-fourth have
some unnatural and disfiguring flexure of the spine!
By not a few observers and calculators, the proportion is maintained to be much greater. A Scottish gentleman of distinction assures us, that he
has examined about two hundred young females,
in fashionable boarding-schools, and that scarcely
one of them was free from some sort of corsetinjury. Those whose spines were not distorted,
had unsightly effects produced on their shoulderblades, collar-bones, or some other part of the
chest, which atufingf and wadding would be re
quisite to conceal. Some were hunchbacked, and
in not a few one shoulder was higher than the
other; effects which, in our own country, are much
nore frequent than is generally suspected. In no
individual was true personal symmetry amended
by the practice; while in almost every one it was
impaired, and in many destroyed: in fact, such
pressure cannot fail to injure the symmetry of the
trunk, that being its direct tendency. The custom,
therefore, is as foreign from correct taste as from
sound philosophy-and I was near saying, from
humanity and moral rectitude.
TO ABD-EL-KADER.
I.
Well done, my gallant Arab chief!
Lord of a steed and lance,
Lead on your desert-born, and brief
Must be the sway of France;
Teach her, that Afric's burning sands
Are ruled alone by flashirg brands!
II.
Lead out your squadrons to the plains Your horse unknown to fear,
And tell the Frank, if soil he gains,
'Tis measur'd by his spear!
Go, rouse Algieria with your call,
And flout your banners'gainst her wall I
II}.
Shall Isbmael yield his heritage
While lives a single son?
Yield that unto a foeman's rage By foeman never won
Since the world's mistress snatch'dyour wild
From bold Hiempsal's bastard* child?
Iv.
They say the Roman conquer'd thee,
'lheir triumph here is small,
Lives it within their memory,
The Roman conquer'd Gaul?
For this, her legionary spears,
For that, beside, two hundred years.
V.
But France hath tried your Arab steel,
The day an honor'd one,
That saw her beaten cohorts reel
Beneath old Acre's gun:
And ye who clipt Napoleon's wings,
Need hardly fear her Philip's stings.
VI.
Oh! stay this grasping Gallic hand,
Roll back the tide of war;
Her lilies, planted in your sand,
Should never blossom there!
Show them, how keen, oppression's made
The temper of an Arab blade!
VII.
Fight on! ye have the sympathies
Qf all the good and brave;
Fight on! till every sandrift lies
Above a Frenchman's grave;
* Literally, and not poetically, so, for Ingurtha battled tq
the last against the Roman legions.
732
To dbd-F-d-Kader.
[OCTOBF,lt,