The evening world. Newspaper, July 31, 1919, Page 18

+ Borrows Its “‘New”’ Style i From Ancients of 760 B.C. has Followed Civilization, and ‘‘Tight Lac- ing” Was a Topic for Discussion Two Dozen ‘ / Centuries Ago—Styles Have Often., Changed, a } Not Always for the Better, and Corset Covers Once Were Made of S ‘Has Recorded. w. ‘teel—Here’s What History By Jean West Maury Compriaht, 1919, by The Pree Publishing Co, (The New York Brenins World), ION, up to her age-old tricks, is repeating herself again, and this ‘ thme in corsets, giving to the summer girl of 1! topless corset, & garment not unlike the anciént stomacher and the worn by the ladies of old Judea 760 years before Carist. Perhaps you did not know the Israelitish women of fashion in anclent in the high-priced, 4478 Wore corsets. They did, and if you doubt it, read the third chapter of eP except the purpose of a corset. The. the Chinese, almost every tribe, has worn something which leather belt of the savage, laced tight mn Tae HHH were corsets worn by the ancient times, but the evila 4 of tight-lacing were discussed as far Pack as half a thousand years before | the Christian era. In the Stuart col- fection at the Iibrary there is a book @Rtaining a quotation from one Ter- entius, who was born in the year 660 BC, and who, some twenty-five Fears later, fell in love with a coun- ‘try laasio unacquainted with corsets. Comparing ber with the women of his * @wn social set, to the latter's dis- eredit, Terentiud said; “This pretty _Ofeature is not &t ali like our town ladies, who saddle their backs (he ust have meant that they wore , Dvetles, too,) and strait-lace their ‘waists to make them well-shaped.” ‘Terentius went on to say that if the ‘Women in the country where this “pretty creature” lived began to grow @tout and lose their shapes they were fat once proclaimed hostesses, and it e their duty to eat very little, hus regained their shapelineas,” lure about as hygientc as ‘Midst of the corset substitutes recom- mended aince that time, Bomewhere between that period and the eighth century A. D, the art of )@oreet making seems to have been Jost to civilized man. It was restored im the ninth century, and by the lle of the noxt century tight lac- had reached such a stage that a old monk, depicting a fanciful of fashion,” with @ bird's head claws, gave it the body of a whose waist line is com- to @ mere nothing in measure- . This figure wears @ corset Yaced up in front, but laced together, #0 there can’t be any bulging of the ‘Hem to give that pouchy effect so Bure to fellow the continued wearing a it-laced corsets that don’t meet they are laced. 4, ‘Bhe same old book has in it a pic- _fture of Princess Blanche, daughter of ard Ill, wearing a “sp.en- MiG girdle of beaten gold, embellished ‘with rubies and emeralds, about her alddle small,” and it is small. She ‘Fodks as if an athletic motor corps girl pick her up and snap her in two a simple jerk of the wrist, * It was left to Catherine de Medici Queen Elizabeth to invent a that would reduce the waist ite smallest dimensions. These admirable women both loathed ebhorred a thick ‘have said that Eljzabeth, with thelr court feminine satellites, first into their cor- of stout cloth, con- the twenty-second and twenty-third verses. ‘Nobody knows when, where nor how the corset originated. Every na- passed through holes that have been made with the point of a breath left in the lady's body. Then the strings were securely tied, and the lady was ready for her corbet cover. This corset cover of steel was really made of the strongest steel, inflexible and unyielding. The steel ‘was criss-crossed, giving it an open- work effect, which lightened the farthent considerably, and the bars were covered with silk and lace, The cotset cover opened on hinges, and fastened with @ hasp and pin, It was worn over the corset to make sure that garment held, and also to insure the smooth fit of the outer dress. With these bats to stoutness to ald her, a woman was very much Out of the fashion, not to méntion out of favor at court, if her waist measured more than thirteen inches, Although the steel corset cover went out of style with the passing of Elizabeth of England and Catherine de Medici, very tight lacing was kept up for two or three centuries. In the time of Cozens, the famous London corset-maker for the Queen, the stays were held together at the top by a ‘narrow, stiff bar of steel, curved to take the shape of the breast, and running up over the shoulders to hold them back. To make sure the back of the wearer was straight, a back- Doard, stiff and unbending, | was strapped flat against the apine from the waistline to the neck, where it was joined to a steel ring, covered with leather and hinged to encirtie the throat and fasten under the chin, from which it is easy to observe that the debutante slouch had not been in- troduced in those days, With the beginning of the nine- teenth century the corset seems to have’ been considerably modified Some of the styles of the period be- tween 1800 and 1830 are quite attrac- tive, the corset outlining the figure without taking from it all its grate of motion, and the hideous hoop- skirts, that are threatened again for this summer, having been temporarily relegated to the background. Abdout 1830 the corsets were again tightened, What was still worse, from the anti-corset advocate's point of view, was that the young girls were put into corsets at the age of twelve Or thirteen years, so their waists would not have a chance to grow large. The corsets were very stiff, ‘Milled thick with whalebone, and sup- plied with shoulder-straps to hold back the young shoulders, Hor a damse) in distress ever managed to faint @racefully in one of them is a mystery that only a falnting woman could explain, but manage jt they did, as any novel of the period. will show. Perhaps it was because they were so accustomed to their corsets, If you will read old English journals for women of that time you will find running through them a warm dis- Cussion as to the merits and demerits of sleeping in*one’s corsets, Even the men joined in this discussion, usually on the side of the corset. Atter four or five years of argument about it, the consensus of opinion seems to have been that it was not at all injurious to the health, and that women owed it to themselves and their figures to sleep tightly corseted. It remained for the corset makers of the twentieth century to develop the perfect corset. We began it by studying the needs of the stout woman. There is really no reason why @ stout woman should not be iso @ graceful woman, and, properly corseted, she ls. The twentieth cen- tury corset is designd to give comfort to the wearer and grace to the figure, end @ little observation along Fifth Avenue any day will be enough to convince the most skeptical that the modern corset fulfils its purpose. This trend toward the sensible cor- set began with the straight front of 1900, or thereabouts. Ever since that time women's waists have been grad- wal) crow larger, and their hips jer, until now, in this year of 1919, thé norma ‘waist has been Rite change in the style and Saale of the corset, 4 SPAM ar 9s ep AR America to See Belgium’s Fighting King \OAZ ! Sea me oe and [lis Family This Fall CHRONOLOGY OF THEIR WAR DEEDS IN DEFENSE OF THEIR STRICKEN COUNTRY ABLE we, Oe The DUKE of BRABANT. By Marguerite Mooers Marshall: WW" King Albert and Queen Elizabeth of Belgium come to America in September, late Washington despatch assures us they will do, the world’s most democratic nation will take special pleasure ip extending its hospitality to the world’s most democratic royalties. For if ever a King and Queen justified their existence according to the sternest standards of modern critics, half years of their country’s agony, fou it is this pair, who, for four and a ight with their people, lived with their people, shared with their people the dangers, the hardships, the endurances, the labors of the worst and greatest o' Other royalties took shelter afar from the firing line, and served their| country by putting the palit on a| Prohibition basis for the duration of | the war, and by pinning medals gra- ciously on the breasts of mutilated heroes from the trenches. Albert and Elizabeth never left thelr armies. | This is what the King did: N August, 1914, he indignantly re- I fused to treat with the Germans who asked him for a right of way to crush France, called Belgiym to the colors through a ringing message to poth Howses of Parliament, and took personal command of the Bel- gian Armies, He served at the gallant defense of Liege, and when the Kaiser sent him & personal message demanding the surrender of its forts and threatening to take them by force, Albert re- sponded laconically, “Try.” He was at Louvain, and with the dauntless Belgian Army in Its stub- born fighting retreat, He directed the reststance at Ant- werp during its bonipardment. . While leading the army soward Antwerp if wai shrapnel burst ten yards away from his car, tearing off one of the rear wheels, He ascended repeatedly in a balloon for military observation and was shelled by the enemy, “I will never leave my army,” he declared at this time, and in the next few years he lived up to his promise, After the fall of Antwerp, in the fighting near the coast, he was con- tinually among his men, encouraging them and sharing their risks and dis- comforts, “My skin is of no more value than is yours," he smilingly told his staff when they urged him to leave the trenches and seek safety. “My place is on the firing Hne.” He was stubborn in his defense of the last few square miles of his coun- try, where be and his army stood with their back to the sea, He did not remove his headquarters from Furness until the shrapnel had practically wrecked the building, One shell exploded within a few feet oi | indow near which was sitting. ‘He has no dwelling,” some one wrate of him a tow weeks later, “We does not quit his soldiers. He eats the ordinary fare, changes his shirt when he can, works eighteen hours a day and has slept four nights run- ning on the cushions of his automo- bile.” At about this time his role was nobly pictured in one of Punch’s car- toons, which showed Albert and the Kalser side by side surveying @ rav- aged land. “Well, Sire, you have lost every- thing,” Wilhelm observed sardoni- cally, And Albert answered, soul!” Al through the bitter winter of 1915 he went from his headquarters at La Panne to point after point along the Belgian front—wherever the fire was heaviest—as much in peril of woynds or death as any common soldier, In the first twelve months of the war his chauffeur, bribed heavily, at- tempted to take him inside the Ger- man lines, and, according to the story, King Albert shot the man dead with his own hand, The perfect simplicity of his man- ner and his quiet cordiality have been noted alike by correspondents and soldiers, One of our men came back with a charming story of how Albert in his plane made @ landing near the American's post and asked him for a “Not my match. “{ had heard of ‘Albert's chariot,’ ” “I'm Albert,” was the monarch's matter-of-fact reply. And he passed his cigarettes. His first address in Brussels, after his joyous and triumphant entry last November, contained a promise of equal suffrage. His coming visit to America, by the way, will be his second sojourn among us. Being the nephew of his royal predecessor, ‘and not the direct heir, his youth was infinitely freer than that of most rulers, and he travelled widely, “learning of cities and men.” He came to this country, was entertained in New York and made jpecial inspection of our rail road system under James J. Hill and of of! plants in Bayonne and other industries, His wife, Queen Elizabeth, has an equally fine war record. When the Belgians were expelled from Brussels she first took to the home of Lord Curzon in England her three chil- dren, Prince Leopold, then thirteen years of age; Prince Charles, eleven, and Princess Marie Jose, eight. Then this is what the queen did: HE set up her home in the sim- S plest and most unpretentious of seaside villas at La Panne, a village in the tiny strip of Belgium just behind the firing Ijnes, which never fell into the enemy's hands. This became known to the Germans as the headquarters of Albert and Hisabeth, and was subjected to in- the American said, “and I thought I recognized the face. So I said, ‘Aren't you the King of the Belgians?’ cessant aerial bombardment. She immediately opened a large hos- pital containing 1,600 beds in what had Housekeeping in Box Car In Bleak Northern Russia [ New York Girl's Honeymoon | And ‘Biggest Thrill of Ail Came When Her Brand: New Husband Was Captured by Bolshevists yea Mrs. Ryall Didn’t See Him Again Until She Got Back to America. Copyright, 1919, by The Press Publishing Co, (The New York Evening World), ROMANCE under the northern lights of Russia, a war marriage Archangel, housekeeping in a box car from which thousands American soldiers were fed sandwiches and hot coffee and, as @ last chapter, one’s brand new husband captured by the Bolsheviks. >? These a few of the thrillin; 1g stories that Mrs. Bryant R. Ryalk formerly Miss Catherine Childe, a New York girl, Y. W. C. A. secretary, had to tell on her arrival in New York ldst week, 4 “Official Homemaker” was the title given Miss Childs when she entered Archangél in the fall of 1918 S&he was formerly director of the cafeteria of the Cleveland Y. W. C. A. and for her home-made cookies she’ beoamé famous with the troops that passed Ryall, who, with a Russian helper, was serving British, French and American and numerous blockhouses by keeping his Y. M. C, A. freight car canteens moving to and from Obezer- skaya, the central point, often found his way to Archangel for supplies on “hot cookie days.” The romance be- tween the ¥. W. C. A. and Y. M. C. A. workers developed in spare ‘moments between feeding and caring for thou- sands of soldiers who passed through Archangel and Obezerskaya. In December, Ryall persuaded Miss’) Childs to marry him and combine forces of the Y. W. C. A. with the Y. M. C. A. at Obezerskaya. The couple were rried in Archangel, and a few days later started housekeeping in a box cal “Its a world of fun—living in a freight car,” Mrs. Ryall said. “I would not exchange with any bride in all America, my cozy little box car with its red rug and scrim curtains for the most beautiful apartment on a fash- fonable boulevard. I had to learn to cook all over again with powdered milk, powdered eggs, dried vegetables, canned meats and fish, and only canned fruits. The days were full, supervising the cafeteria, assisting in the canteen, playing hostess at both the Hut and the Reading car, as well as in our own car, visiting the hos- pital, occasionally making something especially for the men in the hos- pital—ice-cream, cookies, fudge, or supplying them with magazines, writ- ing material, communiques, tobacco and candy. “One evening, about sundown, the Bolphevike stormed a small village about twenty-five versts from us, and took prisoner Mervie V. Arnold, an- other Cleveland man who was serv- ing British troops on their cold march across the country. “American troops were at once rushed out to this new front and my husband followed with necessary equipment for feeding them. 1 was through Archangel, THERINE Cros VAN left to serve the innumerable troops that were passing through Cbesert wkaya, I did not hear from me Ryall foridays, and on March s messenger came to the box car with word that he had been captured by the Bolsheviks and taken to Mos- cow. He had been taken one morning while on his way from camp for sup plies, “It was after weeks of anxiety tha} a Bolo prisoner came through from Moscow and assu us that both men would be quite safe and treated as considerately as possible under present conditions, Father Roach, Brfitish chaplain, came through sev- eral days later and brought a letter from my captive husband. “I remanied until the middle of Apri} through the transfer of troops, and word finally came that my husband would be released, From there I returned to England and it was not until I reached America that I again. saw my husband.” TWO MINUTES OF OPTIMISM | By Herman J. Stich | Copyright, 1919, by The Press Publishing Co, (The New York Evening World), Good Society Manners, But— INE-TENTHS of the mis- N fortune and misery in this world is due to somebody's being behind time. The most sickening ughter- fest that has ever torn this globe was caused by certain na- tions, from a military point of view, being behind time. Hundreds of thousands of people have been crippled and killed and thousands of others have been maimed and mangled in mine and railway and factory accidents — because somebody was behind time. In crises minutes are years and hours pack infinite powers. Napoleon’s attacking column was massacred. Wellington won Waterloo. Napoleon suffered St. Helena. The map of a continent was redrawn—because Grouchy was behind time. The Dioodiest battle of the War of 1812 was fought after peace was declared—decauée the message was behind time. National stability, personal welfare, honor and office are recklessly squandered through tardiness. - Insignificant odds and ends of time have saved the day or paved the way to irretrievable disaster. Half the failures of life are sealed to their fate because they're always “just too late.” Being behind time may be good “society” manners, but ft is the men who are ON TIMB that | arrive, ———_——_—— et been the Hotel de T'Ocean at Loe Panne. Being only two hours from the trenches, all the worst cases were taken to thty hospital. She not only superintended its op- erations but she herself spent long hours in a Red Cross uniform caring for and cheering her wounded coun- trymen, Before her marriage she had done a most un-Princess-like thing: she had studied medicine at Leipzig and won a doctor's degree there, She gave up the services of all the ladies of her personal suite and ar- ranged for them to become war nurses. She several times reviewed troops while enemy planes were flying over- head, likely to begin bombing at any moment, She visited the Belgian soldiers in the trenches, often going to parts of the line under ghell fire, She made at least one trip in a Bel- gian plane over the German lines and frequently crossed the Channel by plane to visit her children. She followed loss o@ the heels of rl the retreating German Army last autumn in order to be of succor te the wretched refugees, While the Germans were still tn the outskirts of Ostend she entered the harbor in a British destroyer, a+ though ft was momentarily in danger of being sunk by the German artile lery fire, and she was giving aid to Belgian civilians in Ostend while the city was within shell range of the withdrawing enemy. . Although before her marriage she was a Bavarian Princess, no suspicion of pro-Germanism flecked her loyalty. to Belgfum during the entire war, When some daring soul asked her how she felt toward her German mother and other relatives, her blue eyes flashed as she answered: “Be tween them and me there is a curtain of steel!” Young Prince Leopold and Prince Charles, before the end of the war, were put into uniforms and brought back to Belgium by their parents, the elder boy, according to the spatches, going with his father to fighting front. Is it not a truly “royal” recorg? * | J, P ~ a