[Mr. Haweis in addressing a crowded Congregation at St. James’s, Marylebone, spoke very strongly on the Criminal Ignorance and thoughtlessness of Tight Lacing.] What is it makes a lady’s head Feel heavy as a lump of lead? What makes her nose’s tip so red? Tight-lacing! What makes her cheek burn like a coal, Her feet as cold as Arctic pole? What cramps her body and her soul? Tight-lacing! What makes her temper short and sharp? What causes her to fret and carp, And on the smallest ills to harp? Tight-lacing! What checks her proper circulation, And dulls her ordinate sensation? What blighted babes breeds for the nation? Tight-lacing! What makes her waist a wasp-like thing, And gives her tongue a waspish sting? What baulks her when high notes she’d sing? Tight-lacing! What is it, with its vice-like squeeze, Destroys its fated victim’s ease, And brings her doctors countless fees? Tight-lacing! What is it makes her gasp for breath, And――so stern modern science saith―― Dooms her too oft to early death? Tight-lacing! What brings a “corn upon her heart,” And makes her――spoil’d by cruel art―― Unfit to play the mother’s part?―― Tight-lacing! What tortures her into a shape Which “ruts the liver” past escape, And which, at most, makes _gommeux_ gape?―― Tight-lacing! What beauty’s lines in her destroys, And fashion’s powerful aid employs, To crush from out her life its joys?―― Tight-lacing! What ages her before her time, And makes her feeble ere her prime? What tempts to a self-suffer’d crime?―― Tight-lacing! What quite ignoring nature’s facts, Her waist so cruelly contracts, That each inch saved fresh pain exacts? Tight-lacing! And what bad fashion of the day Is it that ladies now should say They’ll spurn without an hour’s delay?―― Tight-lacing! _Truth_, April 24, 1879. ――――:o:―――― “BABY” AT THE STRAND THEATRE. Who is’t whose life has just begun With quip, and crank, and mirth, and fun, Who cannot walk, yet’s bound to _run_――? “The Baby!” With grief o’erwhelmed and sore distrest, By fear disturbed, by care opprest, Who makes me laugh with merry jest?―― “The Baby!” Who is it from each box and stall Each night receives applause from all, Because his birth was with a _caul_?―― “The Baby!”