Next morning as we stood in line, she measured our waist and told us we would have to continue sleeping in these corsets. Once a week, she said that we could be allowed to take them off. At last the time came for us to take them off and what a relief that was. In a short time, however, they were put back on again and laced in smaller than ever. ... At last, though, I got so that the sixteen inch corset would lace up tight and I knew I was a successful model. ... Now I am proud of myself. Mistress has gotten me so that my waist is only fifteen inches. My corsets, too, are well laced together. Everybody admires my little waist ... I am not sorry that I am a model as after all I have gone through I am well looked after my mistress, and if she were to ask me to put on smaller corsets, I would do so. Various writers condemned the practice, for example: Now there is one practice which is painfully common among all classes, and that is the use of the "locked corset". This is practically a steel corset, with a waist varying from about 14in to 16in. Into this the growing girl is compressed by force, the corset is shut tight and secured by a lock, the key being kept by the mother or whoever is responsible for the proceeding. It may be observed here that it is the usual practice for the heads of "trying on" departments in large dress-making and mantle-making establishments to require all girls engaged in "trying on" to enter one of these corsets, which is locked, and the key kept by the head. In the case of the growing girl, the object is to prevent the waist from growing as the rest of the body develops, and the idea is really only worthy of Chinese cruelty. In the case of the shop girl, the object is to "preserve" the figure precisely at the exact amount of compression which is supposed to I show off ladies' garments to the best advantage. In any case, the girl is confined in this way by the middle, night and day. She has to sleep in her "little ease" if she can, and the torture is such that at first even the shopgirl, worn out with the fatigues