Page:The Virile Powers of Superb Manhood.djvu/101

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WHY MARRIAGE SOMETIMES WRECKS.
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tion, impedes muscular action, and lays siege to the child-bearing citadel itself. It often destroys germinal life before birth, or soon after, by most effectually cramping, inflaming, and weakening the vital apparatus, and stopping the flow of life at its fountain head. It takes the lives of tens of thousands before they marry, and so effectually weakens and diseases as ultimately to cause the death of millions more.

TIGHT LACING DESTROYS WOMANHOOD.

"No tongue can tell, no finite mind conceive, the misery it has occasioned, nor the number of deaths, directly and indirectly, of young women, bearing mothers, and weakly infants it has occasioned; besides those millions on millions it has caused to drag out a short but wretched existence. If this murderous practice continues another generation, it will bury all the middle and upper class of women and children, and leave propogation to the coarse-grained but healthy lower. Most alarmingly has it already deteriorated our very race in physical strength, power of constitution, energy, and talents. Reader, how many of