The terrible sufferings that are sometimes thus induced can never be conceived of, or at all appreciated from any use of language. Nothing that the public can be made to believe on this subject will ever equal the reality. Not only mature persons and mothers, but fair young girls sometimes, are shut up for months and years as helpless and suffering invalids from this cause. This may be found all over the land. And there frequently is a horrible extremity of suffering in certain forms of this evil, which no woman of feeble constitution dressing in present fashion can ever be certain may not be her doom. Not that in all cases this extremity is involved, but none can say who will escape it. In regard to this, if one must choose for a friend or a child, on the one hand, the horrible torments inflicted by savage Indians or cruel inquisitors on their victims, or, on the other, the protracted agonies that result from such deformities and displacements, sometimes the former would be a merciful exchange. And yet this is the fate that is coming to meet the young as well as the mature in every direction. And tender parents are unconsciously leading their lovely and hapless daughters to this awful doom. There is no excitement of the imagination in what is here indicated. If the facts and details could be presented, they would send a groan of terror all over the land. For it is not one class, or one section, that is endangered. In every part of our country the evil is progressing. And, as if these dreadful ills were not enough, there have been added methods of medical treatment at once useless, torturing to the mind, and involving great liability to immoralities.[5] [5] Some extracts from medical writers in Note A will give the views of the most respected physicians all over the land on this point. [Illustration: Fig. 62.] [Illustration: Fig. 63.] In hope of abating these evils, drawings are given (Fig. 62 and Fig. 63) of the front and back of a jacket that will preserve the advantages of the corset without its evils. This jacket may at first be fitted to the figure with corsets underneath it, just like the waist of a dress. Then delicate whalebones can be used to stiffen the jacket, so that it will take the proper shape, when the corset may be dispensed with. The buttons below are to hold all articles of dress below the waist by button-holes. By this method the bust is supported as well as by corsets, while the shoulders support from above, as they should do, the weight of the dress below. No stiff bone should be allowed to press in front, and the jacket should be so loose that a full breath can be inspired with ease while in a sitting position.