On being discovered and removed by the schooner, the three survivors received all the attention which their situation required. This having been attended to, the crew of the schooner proceeded to remove from the frigate everything that could be taken out; and after having loaded their own vessel with wine, flour, and everything else that was removable, whether public or private property, though without discovering the money, they returned to Senegal.

Those who had been rescued by the boats, and also from the raft, expected that the schooner, besides fetching the public property from the wreck, would bring many articles which they could claim as their own. The crew of the schooner, however, though in the service of the king of France, acted on this occasion the part of pirates: they not only kept and made sale, in the market of St Louis, of articles of value found in the wreck, but robbed the miserable victims whom they had rescued.

The report they gave of the state of the wreck, induced the governor to permit merchants to send vessels to bring off more of the goods on board-the proceeds to be equally divided between the government and the adventurers. Four vessels thus set sail, and in a short time brought back a great quantity of flour, salt provisions, brandy, cordage, and other articles, of which there was a fair division.

In concluding this melancholy recital, we almost feel it necessary to assure our readers that what we have been telling them is no dressed-up fiction, but a narrative drawn from authentic sources, and true in every particular. We need scarcely repeat, what must occur to every mind, that nothing in the whole annals of shipwreck equals in infamy the conduct of Lachaumareys, the captain of the Medusa, or of the governor Schmaltz, with whom he appears to have acted in concert. Neither, we believe, did ever any disaster by sea or land present such a series of blunders, such want of concert or management, or such a defi ciency, among nearly all concerned, of the common feelings of humanity. Shortly after its occurrence, the shipwreck of the Medusa created a considerable sensation in Europe; and especially in France. The general feeling was that of horror; but in France, this sentiment was mingled with shame, and every effort was made to prevent the publication of the details by Corréard, as well as belief in them after publication. But all was unavailing. The narrative remains trustworthy in all respects —a sad memorial of human suffering and depravity.

THE PICARDS.

The account we have been presenting would be in some measure incomplete, without a notice of this unfortunate family; and this we are fortunately able to supply, from the account of the shipwreck written by Mademoiselle Picard. As soon as M.

It has been left for Englishwomen to discover and practise the most deadly of all the means of personal discomfort and distortion.

The object of tight lacing is the same as that given for compressing the Chinese female foot-an idea of securing beauty in form. A small waist is thought beautiful, elegant, the perfection of figure. This idea originates in no correct perception of beauty, and is in violation of nature. It has its foundation in caprice and ignorance. In all probability it began with some fashionable lady of the court, whose waist was admired for its handsome shape; and, to have waists equally neat, all the other ladies would commence lacing and squeezing themselves, without any regard to proportion or bulk of figure. Be this as it may, tight lacing has been followed as a fashion by all classes of females, from the highest to the lowest; and now it may be spoken of as a universal frenzy, ruinous to comfort, and destructive of health. How it should be injurious, may be understood from the following explanations.

The interior of the body consists of two cavities, one above the other. In the uppermost, termed the chest, are contained

the heart and lungs, as marked in the annexed engraving, fig. 2. H is the heart; RL the right lung; and L L the left lung. The use of the heart is to act as a force-pump for sending the blood through the various channels of the body. The lungs are the organs of breathing, and contain a vast number of minute cells and tubes, into which the air is drawn at every inspiration. The cavity of the chest is separated from the cavity beneath by the diaphragm, marked DD in the engraving. In the lower cavity are the stomach, marked Stm.; and the intestines, marked III; these constituting the alimentary organs, or organs for

Fig. 2.

receiving and digesting the food. Immediately over the stomach is the liver, marked Liv.; and the duty of which is to secrete the bile. Within this cavity there are some other vital organs, not expressed in the engraving. The whole of this beautiful apparatus, for circulating the blood, inhaling and expiring air, receiving and digesting food, and otherwise keeping the animal economy in motion, may be observed to be neatly packed together, leaving no space unoccupied or to spare. Neither, however, is there any undue pressure of one part on another. All the parts are provided with exactly that degree of room which they require no more, and no less. On considering this ingenious arrangement, the mind must be struck with the folly, if not impiety, of any kind of undue compression from without. We can see at a glance that pressure must have the effect of forcing the organs out of their proper place, and of crushing them on each other. This crushing of course prevents freedom of action; the heart cannot get properly wrought, the lungs cannot freely breathe, the blood does not circulate healthily, the stomach cannot rightly digest, and the liver and other viscera are put equally out of sorts the whole machine is deranged.

The internal parts of the body, thus briefly referred to, are, as every one must know, sustained by a framework of bonescomposed of the vertebræ or back-bone, the shoulder and breast bones, and the ribs. External compression, in the first place, discomposes and distorts this system of bones. In the annexed engravings, figures 3 and 4, are shown the appearance of the ribs and chest before and after compression. In fig. 3, which repre

sents the frame in its natural state, it will be observed that the ribs increase in the bulge or expansion from the higher to the lower, affording room for the heart and lungs in the chest, and space beneath for the liver, stomach, and bowels. By lacing the waist tightly, we produce the effect observable in fig. 4. The

lower ribs are forced in upon the liver and stomach; and these members, to escape the torture imposed on them, press partly down upon the bowels, and partly up against the diaphragm, which in turn presses against the heart and lungs. Although the lacing may be relaxed at night, the repeated daily pressure gives a permanent set to the bones, and the ribs are found irrevocably distorted-tapering towards a point where they should bulge out, and bulging out where they should taper.

This alteration of shape in the ribs is the earliest and least distortion. Other and greater calamities to the bony structure ensue. Jammed out of their natural position, the heart and lungs press upon and make an effort to expand the chest and shoulder bones: this effort is partly restrained by the external pressure; and there are thus two pressures contending against each other. Nature outraged, has her revenge: one shoulder becomes higher than the other, and the spine is bent. Distortion is also going on beneath; very frequently one hip becomes larger than the other. The whole body is twisted. As our own testimony on this subject is of little value, we beg to present that of an able medical writer, Mr Samuel Hare.* "The usual mode of attack in this species of disease [spinal curvature, represented in fig. 5] is as follows:-After long-continued

Fig. 5.

pressure upon the chest and abdomen, occasioned by the instrumentality of tight lacing, a perceptible deterioration of health ensues, the rapidity of which will depend much upon the previous state of the constitution. This derangement of health naturally produces a softening of the bones, accompanied frequently by disordered functions of the lungs, in which the heart and abdominal viscera participate; and unless arrested in its progress, deformity will be estab

lished, producing a scene which terminates in suffering and calamity, and, often through neglect, in premature dissolution. A very little reflection will show the reader the mode in which lateral curvature of the spine is generally produced. The upper part of the stays are brought close under the arms, and being

*Practical Observations on the Causes and Treatment of Curvature of the Spine. By Samuel Hare, Surgeon. Longman and Co. 1838.

tightly girt behind, they cause excessive pressure on the scapula or shoulder-blades; these, in their turn, press upon the ribs and spinal column, and by this pressure the free use of the arms is obstructed. The various avocations of life unavoidably tend to a much greater use of the right hand and arm than of the left, by which means the former are enabled to emancipate themselves in some measure from the unnatural and disagreeable restraint in which they are held, whilst the latter continue comparatively motionless: this is the immediate and constant cause of that elevation of the right, and consequent depression of the left shoulder, so common amongst females in the middle and higher classes of society. The disproportion in the size of the shoulders, which is so evident, is not occasioned by any material enlargement of the right shoulder, in which little or no difference takes place; the disparity arises from the diminution in size of the left, occasioned by the injurious pressure and confinement to which it has been subject. This more frequent use of the right hand and arm, which custom has rendered almost universal, combined with the injurious effects of pressure by stays, the consequence of tight lacing, is productive of the general prevalence of lateral deformity in young females, especially when of delicate constitutions. By the general use of one arm and side, as already stated, and the feeble resistance offered by the other to the confinement and pressure of stays, the left scapula is forced against the ribs, and these, in turn, against the spinal column, which is thus pushed towards the right side; and, in severe and long-continued cases, some of the vertebræ, generally a part of the dorsal, are so far displaced, as to be driven under the heads of the ribs on the right side, which, being bent at an acute angle, form a ridge, that, upon a superficial examination, may easily be mistaken for the prominence of the true spine, more or less curved, the convex side being towards the right shoulder. In such instances the upper dorsal vertebræ give way so completely, as to become almost horizontal; the hips also appear exceedingly disproportioned in size, the left one being much more prominent than the other."

Distortion of the ribs, distortion of the shoulder and chest bones, distortion of the lower or hip bones, and distortion of the spine, are thus seen to be almost inevitable results of tight lacing. As these distortions are not, for the most part, very conspicuous, some may be inclined to doubt their existence; but the cause of their being generally concealed from observation, is the mode of fashionable dressing, in which, by means of padding, the balance of the figure is externally preserved.

Other bodily deformities, or at least unpleasant appearances, are known to arise from tight lacing. Among these may be mentioned the displacement of the breast, the shrinking and hardening of the nipples (which leads to very serious consequences), and the swelling and flushing of the neck. Sometimes