O Happy, Joyous Eastertide!

The twelve-inch waist and other curiosities

"Here is a 'reader's letter' from New Orleans Times-Democrat, 22 March, 1896

 (though from the reference to India I suspect it may have been reproduced from a British source):

A correspondent writes from Jhalra, Central India:

“I wish more girls would write their figure-training experiences to your paper. I have just left the finishing school where I was for two years, and have come out to my father in India. I may say, without conceit, that I have a good figure and small waist, which are entirely due to the careful system of figure-training enforced at the school I had the good fortune to be sent to. I wish first to protest against the common belief that a small waist and tight-lacing are synonymous terms, that a small waist can only be the outward and visible sign of a tightly-laced corset, whereas it is much more usually the result of years of careful training while the figure is growing and supple and can be molded. 

When I went to the Paris school, at the age of sixteen, my waist measure was twenty-one inches, and I had never worn any but ready-made stays. On reaching my new school my figure was very carefully measured round chest, waist, and hips, my height and weight were taken, and all details entered in a book. After a few days I was fitted with a pair of long, fully-boned corsets with shoulder straps, the waist measure being twenty inches. I was laced into these without much difficulty, and at night I had to wear similar sized, though less stiffly boned, corsets. I at first felt very uncomfortable, but I was old enough to admire and envy the beautiful figures and tiny waists of the elder girls.

“The system enforced was that our waists should be reduced a quarter of an inch every month until the Superior considered that the utmost limit of tenuity, consistent with good health, bad been reached. Great attention was paid to our food and exercise, and drill, and corsets formed the medium through which we received our rewards and punishments. There was considerable rivalry between the girls, and rewards consisted in being allowed to lace our waists in as small as our vanity, or spirit of rivalry, desired on Sundays, and after 5 o'clock In the afternoon on week days. Punishments consisted of what was called ‘backboard drill’ and punishment corsets; the latter were very long, and as stiff as steel bones could make them, and were certainly instruments of torture. When I left school my waist measure was fourteen inches, and I can honestly say that I enjoyed good health and suffered no more than slight temporary inconvenience, and that, with one or two exceptions, the Superior and her staff had to exercise more vigilance to see that we did not lace in our waists smaller than the decreed size, than to see that the decreed size was not exceeded.

“During our free time in the evenings we used to see how small we could make our waists; and I dare say that many will disbelieve me when 1 tell you that many of us often succeeded in getting the tape to meet at twelve inches. I do not mean to say that I could have exhibited my waist laced in to twelve inches; on the contrary, we often were so tightly laced that we could scarcely breathe, and sometimes fainted before we were released. Since I have been “out” I have not been allowed to show my waist smaller than fifteen inches in public, Father says “people stare so at you,” but my night corsets are still always laced in till my waist measures only fourteen inches.

“Everyone here seems to think that I must be fearfully tight-laced. and must be suffering agonies, but it is just as easy and comfortable for me to wear a fifteen Inch waist as it is for untrained figures to wear a twenty or twenty-five inch waist, and I am able to take as much exercise walking, ruling, dancing, tennis. badminton, etc. as my larger-waisted girl friends. I am thankful to say that father likes to see my waist small, and when we dine at home alone I never show larger than fourteen inches, and in one pair of corsets with a lovely frock I exhibit a thirteen and a half inch waist: to make sure of this I am wearing that frock to-night, and father has just measured my waist, and says he certifies it is just over thirteen and a half over dress measurement.

“I am afraid you will think my letter very long, but I must add one word more. The superior's rule was that as long as a girl could wear her corset day and night for a month without such pain as to necessitate relaxing the lace, she should have the usual quarter-inch further reduction on the 1st of next month, and that a corset which could be worn from month's end to month's end, without release was not tightly laced.

“Tight-lacing only began when the corset was so tightly laced that it could not be worn all day and night without such pain as to necessitate relaxing the lace, and that there was hardly any limit to the tenuity to which a girl might reduce her waist provided that she always relaxed the lace when she found she was suffering from being too long in confinement at the extra small size; and she used to warn us never to allow our vanity to risk exhibiting in public a smaller waist than we had proved by private practice we were able to bear.”

Top Girls' Names for 2019

Abigail

Alice

Amelia

Aria

Aubrey

Aurora

Avery

Bella

Brooklyn

Camila

Caroline

Claire

Eleanor

Elena

Emilia

Evelyn

Everly

Hannah

Harper

Hazel

Isla

Kennedy

Kinsley

Layla

Lily

Luna

Madison

Maya

Mila

Naomi

Nora

Nova

Paisley

Penelope

Riley

Scarlett

Stella

Valentina

Victoria

Violet

Willow 

April is an epic

This song has a very strange history for me. I heard it once, in 1968 I think, then it was stowed  at the back of my brain, filed under "something I heard once but will never hear again." And there it stayed, until a year or two ago.

I was standing in my sister's apartment in Toronto, with the FM radio on as usual. She had gone off to work, and I was alone with this enormous mug of coffee.  Then this music came on. It wasn't rock, it wasn't  pop, but almost had the mournful flavor of troubadour music. Or was it vaguely Spanish? There was a long sort of riff on guitar, and then without warning the music went orchestral. It was almost medieval-sounding, a sound of antiquity. The orchestrated middle passage led in to  a sort of primal wail on electric guitars, an updating of T.S Eliot's howl of grief and longing and impossible hope.

So the piece was a sort of trilogy, three disparate forms which somehow went together. My brain memorized every atom of  the piece, for some reason, and then at the end of it the announcer said, "April". And that was that.

No more memories or associations until much, much later, when I began to think about that medieval-sounding piece, whatever it was, wasn't it called April? That was literally all I had to go on. I had no idea what the group's name was or even what year it came out. How could I ever find it now? How! Within six minutes, or maybe it was six seconds, I had it up on YouTube, and for the length of it the hair stood up on my scalp and all over my body.

Yes. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, that was it.

April is an epic, an example of how popular music of the '60s attempted to meld classical with rock. It's really three separate pieces that lead into each other, so I have to listen to them with three sets of ears. But it's good, very good, I might even say awesome if I ever used that word, to be reunited with this unique, quirky mystery, this paean to the month of Aries, this Rite of Spring. 

       April is a                            cruel time

               Even though the sun       may          shine 

And world looks in the 

shade                                                                       as it 

slowly comes away

Still falls the April 

rain

           And the valley's filled with            pain

And you can't tell me

 quite why

As I look up to the 

gray sky

Where it should be blue

Grey sky

where I should see you

Ask why,                                 why it should be so

I'll cry, say that                

I don't know

Baby once in a while

            I'll forget and              

I'll smile

But then                  

the feeling    comes       again

             of an April without end

Of an April 

     lonely as a girl
         In the dark of    my mind 

I can see all too fine

But there is nothing to be done when I just 

can't feel the sun

And the springtime's 

   the season of 

                          the night

Grey sky 

where it should be 

blue

Grey sky 

where I should see you

Ask why,      why it should be so

     say that      

I don't know            

      I don't know

I don't know

Death by cassowary

A cassowary, a rare emu-like bird, attacks and kills Florida man, officials say

Cassowaries have a long claw on each foot and are considered dangerous, experts say.

By Deanna Hackney and Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN

Updated 11:40 AM ET, Sun April 14, 2019

(CNN)A cassowary, a giant bird with long claws on each foot, killed its owner after he fell in the backyard of his Gainesville, Florida, home, officials told CNN.

The bird's owner, Marvin Hajos -- who is 75, according to CNN affiliate WCJB -- made the initial call to 911 Friday about 10 a.m. ET. A second call came from another person at the scene who reported a medical emergency involving a large bird, said Lt. Joshua Crews of the Alachua County Sheriff's Office.

Hajos was transported to a nearby hospital, where he died, the lieutenant said. The cassowary remains on Hajos' property as authorities conduct an investigation into the attack, he said.

The owner was a breeder of the rare bird that is native to Australia and New Guinea, Alachua County Deputy Fire Chief Jeff Taylor said.
The death was an accident, officials said. It appears the man fell, and the cassowary attacked him after the fall, Taylor said.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission considers cassowaries Class II wildlife, meaning they pose a danger to humans and are subject to specific cage requirements. Owners must also have "substantial experience" with the animals, the commission says.
Class II is the same category as alligators, honey badgers and clouded leopards, while Class I includes more traditional predators such as a lions, tigers and bears.

The cassowary is a "large, flightless bird most closely related to the emu," according to the San Diego Zoo. It can run up to 31 mph through dense underbrush, jump almost 7 feet into the air and is a skilled swimmer, so it can deftly fend off threats, the zoo says.
They can grow more than 5 feet tall and the heaviest females can weigh more than 160 pounds, the zoo says. Males weigh up to 120 pounds.

"The cassowary is rightfully considered the most dangerous bird in the world!" the zoo says. "Each 3-toed foot has a dagger-like claw on the inner toe that is up to 4 inches (10 centimeters) long! The cassowary can slice open any predator or potential threat with a single swift kick."