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Middle Life.
121

The same thing has also been observed in some European females, who from slovenly habits have neglected to give the necessary support to the parts in question. Lithgow, in his "Rare Adventures and paineful Peregrinations," p. 433, says, "I saw in Ireland's north parts, women travayling the way or toyling at home, carry their infants about their neckes, and laying the dugges over their shoulders, give sucke to the babes behind their backes without taking them in their armes: such kind of breasts me thinketh were very fit to be made money-bags for East or West Indian merchants, being more than half a yard long, and as well wrought as any tanner in the like charge could ever mollifie such leather."

It is true that Englishwomen are not subject to the same extent as those females are, to this falling of the breasts; still there is in all women a tendency in those parts to give way, and in many cases, if sup­port be not applied, the bosom becomes unsightly. In ladies who have a predisposition to corpulency it becomes too full, whilst in others it seems to wither away altogether; in those spare people, also, the figure becomes flat and unsightly, whilst in the fat the abdomen becomes pendulous, and if there be no organic disease, there is what is called a falling