of the day, can hardly sleep for the pain. Probably nothing can be done until all women are sufficiently sensible, to realize that there is no beauty in a wasp's waist, that the majority of men do not really care a bit about it, and that there is real danger in tight-lacing, but surely the dreadful events which have happened lately ought to do something to emancipate schoolgirls and debutantes from their perpetual imprisonment in locked corsets. Elder women who compress on their own account are responsible for their own folly, but something ought to be done to put an end to this form of girl-torture. Another wrote: Girls in the more fashionable London stores make the most amazing statements in reference to dress regulations. They are compelled to compress their waists to a wasp-line slimness to show off the "creations" to the best advantage. The girls are expected to be living fashion plates," says the editor of a London trade paper. "They must have all the elegance of willowy style and lissome, grace of figure, without which they are no good in the service. The editor above referred to a letter from a girl in one of the most fashionable stores, and she makes this alarming statement: "The girls are laced up till they are nearly cut in two. Locked corsets are used, the key being kept by the manageress, and the corsets being worn night and day." In reply to a letter of remonstrance, the firm stated that it had certain regulations in regard to dress and other matters, and that no girl ever objected in the least to tight lacing. One such shop girl certainly had her objections: It is only two months ago that my employer insisted upon my reducing my waist from 16in to 14in, on the ground that she must have a model to show the newest fashions on. How could I refuse? I know many girls who would lace their waist till they fainted to get a good situation. And so to please these ladies, I am locked day and night into a vise which hardly allows me to breathe. The dress reform movement Advocates of dress reform deplored the impractical and restrictive fashions of the time. The bloomer dress was a mid-century attempt at rational clothing for women. It attracted considerable ridicule in the press and relatively few adopters. Other attempts at