[The following article is borrowed from the instructive writings of that calm philosopher, the celebrated Mr. Dick. From the extract here given the reader will perceive that the practice is almost universal of distorting the human form by surgical operations and fantastic dress, until it presents almost any idea except being in the image of its All-wise Creator. Let it be distinctly borne in mind that the following article places the wearing of hoops, contracted waists, and every attempted improvement of the human frame, in the same category with small feet, slitted ears and bored noses. But we will not forestall our author. We only beg the victims of the foolish and wicked fashions of our day to read and be wiser. G. W. A.]
THE human frame, when preserved in its original state, is one of the finest pieces of mechanism which the mind can contemplate. In beauty, in symmetry, in the harmony and proportion of all its parts and functions, it is superior to the organical structures of all the other ranks of sensitive existence. There is no part imperfect or deformed, no part defective, and no part useless or redundant. All its members are so constructed and arranged as to contribute to the beauty and perfection of the whole, and to the happiness of the intelligent mind by which it is governed and directed. In combination with the power of thought and volition, and when unstained by malignant passions, it is a visible representative of the Creator, having been formed after his image; and it displays, in a most striking manner, the wisdom and the goodness of its Almighty Maker. But, notwithstanding the acknowledged excellence of the human frame, it has been the practice of the degraded tribes of mankind, in almost every country, and in every age, to disfigure its structure, and to deface its beauty; as if the Creator, when he formed it, had been deficient in intelligence and in benevolent design. Such practices, I am disposed to think, imply a principle of malevolence directed towards the Creator, and a disposition to find fault with his wise contrivances and arrangements. At any rate, they display a degree of ignorance and folly, a vitiated taste, and a degradation of mind, inconsistent with the dignity of a rational intelligence. The following facts will, perhaps, tend to illustrate these remarks:
Condamine, when describing the natives of South America, informs us, that the Omaguas, and some other savages, flatten the faces of their children, by lacing their heads between two boards; that others pierce the nostrils, lips, or cheeks, and place in them feathers, the bones of fishes, and similar ornaments; and that the savages of Brazil pull the hair out of their beards, their eye-brows, and heads, which make them have an uncommon, and ferocious appearance. Their under lip they pierce, and, as an ornament, insert into it a green stone, or a small polished bone. Immediately after birth the mothers flatten the noses of their children. Captain Cook informs us, that, in New Zealand, both sexes mark their faces and bodies with black stains, similar to the tattooing in Otaheite. The men, particularly, add new stains every year, so that, in an advanced period of life, they are almost covered from head to foot. Besides this, they have marks impressed, by a method unknown to us, of a very91extraordinary kind. They are furrows of about a line deep, and a line broad, such as appear upon the bark of a tree which has been cut through after a year's growth. The edges of these furrows are afterwards indented by the same method, and, being perfectly black, they make a most frightful appearance. Both sexes bore their ears: they gradually stretch the holes till they are so large as to admit a finger. Into these holes they put feathers, colored cloth, bones of birds, twigs of wood, and frequently the nails which they received from the ships. The same voyager, when describing the New Hollanders, tells us, "Their chief ornament is a bone, which is thrust through a hole bored in the cartilage which divides the nostrils. This bone is as thick as a man's finger, and six inches in length. It reaches quite across the face, and so effectually stops up both nostrils, that they are forced to keep their mouths wide open for breath, and snuffle so when they attempt to speak, that they are scarcely intelligible to each other. Our seamen with some humor, called it their spirit-sail yard; and indeed it had so ludicrous an appearance, that, till we were used to it, we found it difficult to restrain from laughter." He also describes a custom of a peculiar nature which prevails in the Friendly Islands. "The greater part of the inhabitants, both male and female, were observed to have lost one or both of their little fingers. This custom seemed not to be characteristic of rank, of age, or of sex; for, with the exception of some young children, very few people were discovered in whom both hands were perfect. They likewise burn or make incisions in their cheeks."
All the eastern nations are said to have a predilection for long ears. Some draw the lobe of the ear, in order to stretch it to a greater length, and pierce it so as to allow the admission of an ordinary pendant. The natives of Laos so prodigiously widen the holes in their ears, that a man's hand may be thrust through them. Hence, the ears of these people often descend to the tops of their shoulders. Gentil assures us, that the women, in the northern parts of China, employ every art in order to diminish their eyes. For this purpose, the girls, instructed by their mothers, extend their eye-lids continually, with the view of making their eyes oblong and small. These properties, in the estimation of the Chinese, when joined to a flat nose, and large, open, pendulous ears, constitute the perfection of beauty. We are informed by Struys, that the women of Siam wear so large and heavy pendants in their ears, that the holes gradually become wide enough to admit a man's thumb. The natives of New Holland pull out the two fore teeth of the upper jaw. In Calicut, there is a band of nobles called Naires, who lengthen their ears to such a degree, that they hang down to their shoulders, and sometimes even lower. The Arabs paint their lips, arms, and the most conspicuous parts of their bodies, with a deep blue color. This paint, which they lay on in little dots, and make it penetrate the flesh, by puncturing the skin with needles, can never be effaced. Some of the Asiatics paint their eye-brows of a black color, and others eradicate the hairs with rusma, and paint artificial eye-brows, in the form of a black crescent, which gives them an uncommon and ugly appearance. The inhabitants of Prince William's Sound, paint their faces and hands, bore their ears and noses, and slit their under lips. In the holes made in their noses, they hang pieces of bone or ivory, which are often two or three inches long; and, in the slit of the lip, they place a bone or ivory instrument with holes in it, from which they suspend beads that reach below the chin. These holes in the lip disfigure them greatly, for some of them are as large as their mouths.
Such distortions of the beautiful structure of the human frame, are not peculiar to the savage tribes of the human race, but are practiced by nations which have made considerable advances in science and civilization. It is well known that,
in China, a ridiculous custom prevails, of rendering the feet of their females so small, that they can with difficulty support their bodies. This is deemed a principal part of their beauty; and no swathing or compression is omitted, when they are young, to give them this fancied accomplishment. Every woman of fashion, and every woman who wishes to be reckoned handsome, must have her feet so small that they could easily enter the shoe of a child of six years of age. The great toe is the only one left to act with freedom; the rest are doubled down under the foot, in their tenderest infancy, and restrained by the tight bandages, till they unite with, and are buried in the sole. I have inspected a model of a Chinese lady's foot, exactly of this description, which, I was assured, was taken from life. The length was only two inches and three-fourths; the breadth of the base of the heel, seven-eighths of an inch; the breadth of the broadest part of the foot, one and one-fourth of an inch; and the diameter of the ankle, three inches above heel, one and seven-eighths of an inch. With feet of this description the Chinese ladies may be said rather to totter than to walk; and, by such practices, they evidently frustrate the benevolent intentions of the Creator, and put themselves to unnecessary inconvenience and pain. Yet such is the powerful influence of fashion, however absurd and ridiculous, that women of the middling and inferior classes frequently suffer their feet to be thus maimed and distorted, in order to ape the unnatural customs of their superiors.
We have every reason to believe that the harsh and ugly features, and the ferocious aspect, by which numerous tribes of mankind are distinguished, are owing to such voluntary distortions of the human frame, and to the filthy and abominable practices in which they indulge. Father Tertre assures us, that the flat noses of the Negroes are occasioned by a general practice of mothers, who depress the noses of their new born infants, and squeeze their lips in order to thicken them; and that those children who escape these operations have elevated noses, thin lips, and fine features. It is somewhat unaccountable, and it shows the perversion of the human mind, in its present degraded state, that such practices should be so general, and so obstinately persisted in, when we consider the pain and inconvenience with which they are attended. To pull the hairs of the chin or eye-brows from the roots; to slit the under lip, till the incision be as large as one's mouth; to pierce the nostrils, till a bone as large as a man's finger can be thrust through them; and to cover the body with black streaks, which make the blood to flow at every stroke of the instrument by which they are produced, must be attended with excruciating pain. Sir Joseph Banks, who accompanied Captain Cook in his first voyage, was present, in the island of Otaheite, at the operation of tattooing, performed on the back of a girl of thirteen years of age. The instrument used had twenty teeth; and at each stroke, which was repeated every moment, issued an ichor or serum, tinged with blood. The girl bore the pain with great resolution, for some minutes, till, at length, it became so intolerable, that she burst out into violent exclamations; but the operator, notwithstanding the most earnest entreaties to desist, was inexorable, while two women, who attended upon the occasion, both chid and beat her for struggling.
I am therefore disposed to view such absurd and barbarous practices, as intimately connected with the operation of a principle of malevolence, as an attempt to frustrate the wise designs of divine benevolence, and as directly repugnant to the spirit of Christianity, and to the benevolent precepts of the gospel of peace. And it becomes some of the ladies, and the dandies of modern Europe to consider, whether some of their awkward attempts to improve the symmetry of the human frame ought not to be viewed in the same light. Not many years ago, it was considered, in the higher circles of society, as an admirable improvement of the female form, to give the lower
half of the body the appearance of the frustrum of a large tun, as if it had been ten times the capacity of its natural size, by supporting their robes with enormous hoops; and, about the same period, the lower ranks of female society considered it as the perfection of proportion and beauty, to have their waists compressed into the smallest possible space, till the vital functions, in many instances, were deranged, and ultimately destroyed. Were the dictates of sound reason universally attended to, and were the influence of Christianity fully felt among all nations, the preposterous and savage practices to which I have now adverted, would not only be discontinued, but held in abhorrence. And were such customs completely abolished, we might soon expect to behold, among all the tribes of mankind, every distortion of the features or the countenance removed, and the human form restored to its original beauty and perfection.—Dick's Works—The Philosophy of Religion, pp. 146, 147, 148.