"Illic Hippolitum pone, Priapus erit."

Ovid.

"Le Proverbe qui a couru À l'Égard des Cioitres, dangereux comme le retour de matines, en pouvoit produire un autre avec un petit changement, dangereux comme le retour du bal."

Bayle.

here are, of course, many other classes of waltzers to whom I might revert, though I have sought in vain for a single one that is entirely free from reproach. It is however time that the evil should be viewed from other points. Let us consider some of its results and effects.

I have repeatedly declared, and I now do so again that the waltz has grown to be a purely sexual enjoyment. That I may not be supposed to stand alone in this assertion I will again quote the words of the worthy clergyman before referred to. He writes:

The dance "consists substantially of a system of means contrived with more than human ingenuity to excite the instincts of sex to action, however subtile and disguised at the moment, in its sequel the most bestial and degrading." And again: "it is a usage that regularly titillates and tantalises an animal appetite as insatiable as hunger, more cruel than revenge."

Gail Hamilton, to whose words most of us will attach some weight, I think, in a contribution to an Eastern journal, says: "The thing in its very nature is unclean and cannot be washed. The very pose of the parties suggests impurity." But I must go further than this, and assert that the and motions of the parties cannot even be spoken of by a young lady without danger of committing a double entendre at which many a "nice young man" will laugh in his sleeve.

I will illustrate this statement: A charming young lady, just arrived from abroad, informed me that we do not execute these new round dances "quite right" in this country. She describes it as having "two forward and two backward movements, then sideways, with a whirl." But she will "show me how to do it on the first opportunity."

"That must, indeed, be nicer than the way we do it," said I, "though I have heard of a similar dance in the Sandwich Islands." Yea, verily, "to the pure all things are pure."

What says St. Aldegonde in a letter written as long ago as 1577 to Caspar Verheiden? He says that he approves of the course adopted by the Church of Geneva, which by interdicting the dance has abolished many filthy abuses of daily occurance; it being the custom of the men to take young girls to balls at night and there to vex them by lewd posturing. No one, he contends, can look on at such a spectacle without sin; what then shall we say of those who take part in it. Much more he adds, and when I say that I dare not translate it here, the reader will be ready to believe that the worthy Saint is pretty plain-spoken in his strictures on the dance. But he is no more so than is Lambert Daneau in his "TraitÉ des Danses," the perusal of which might do some modern dancers good. And yet both these old writers only saw the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out, for the Waltz did not exist in their day.

Now, this being the case, what are we to suppose are its effects upon those who indulge in it? Does the scandal end in the ball room, or, as Byron says, may we not marvel

"If nothing follows all this palming work."

and do we not feel ourselves constrained to believe his assurance that

"Something does follow at a fitter time."

That the waltz has been the acknowledged avenue to destruction for great multitudes, is a truth burnt into the hearts of thousands of downcast fathers and broken-hearted mothers; and the husbands are legion who can look upon hearths deserted and homes left desolate by wives and daughters who have been led captive by this magnificent burst of harmony and laying-on of hands.

One of our ablest writers says: "it is a war on home, it is a war on physical health, it is a war on man's moral nature; this is the broad avenue through which thousands press into the brothel." The "dancing hall is the nursery of the divorce Court, the training ship of prostitution, the graduating school of infamy."

Olaus Magnus tells us that the young people of the North danced among naked sword-blades and pointed weapons scattered upon the ground; our young people dance among far deadlier dangers than these.

Think of it, dear reader, picture to yourself the condition to which a young girl is reduced by the time that her carriage is announced. All the baser instincts of her nature are aroused—to use the words of Erasmus she has "a pound of passion to an ounce of reason." Answer me, is she not now in a fit state to fall an easy prey to the destroyer? And yet in this condition

"Hot from the hands promiscuously applied

Round the slight waist or down the glowing side,"

she is almost borne to her carriage by an escort, "flown with insolence and wine" and whose condition is otherwise similar to her own, except that the excitement of the moment makes him as bold and ardent, as it renders her languid and compliant. He places her panting form upon the soft cushions, and with a whispered admonition to the coachman not to drive too fast, he ensconces himself by her side. But here, as upon an earlier page, we must leave them. The hour, the darkness, everything is propitious—it is little short of a miracle if she escapes.

"Look out, look out and see

What object this may be

That doth perstringe mine eye;

A gallant lady goes

In rich and gaudy clothes,

But whither away God knows."

But let us charitably suppose that the sequel is only a continuation of the license of the waltz, and that she reaches her home with merely the smell of the fire through which she has passed upon her garments—let us suppose that the Ah si liceret! of Caracalla has not been answered by the yielding quic-quid libet licet of his mother-in-law—and what is the result? The flame that has been aroused must be allayed. If she is unmarried, then in God's name let us inquire no farther; but if she is a wife then is the dear indulgent husband at home privileged to meet a want inspired in the embrace of "the first dancer in the valley," and to enjoy some advantage, at least, from the peculiar position which he sustains toward the matronly dancer.

And now may we not take a peep at the fair danseuse as she comes into the breakfast-room at noon next day. Is this broken-down, used-up creature the radiant beauty of the night before? Can it be that that "healthful recreation," the Waltz, has painted those dark circles round her eyes and planted those wrinkles on her brow?

"Alas, the mother, that her bare,

If she could stand in presence there,

In that wan cheek and wasted air

She would not know her child."

She is paying now for the sweetness of "stolen waters" and the pleasantness of bread "eaten in secret." For the next week what pleasure will husband, father, or brother, derive from her society. She is ill and peevish—she is damaged both in body and soul. For the next week, did I say? Well, I meant until the next invitation to a dance arrives. That is the magic elixir that will brighten the dull eyes and recall the dead smiles to life. Then invoking the rejuvenating spirit of the cosmetic-box and tricked out in the finery which those most near, but not most dear, to her have toiled to purchase, she will sally forth to lavish upon the lechers of the ball-room a gracious sweetness which she never showed at home.

But where is Apollo all this time?

We left him burning with half satiated lust before the gate of his paramour's mansion. Where will he go to complete his debauch? At what strange fountains will he quench the flame that is devouring him? Go ask the harlot! She will reap the harvest that has ripened in the warm embrace of maids and mothers. She is equally fortunate with the husband described above. Ah, well! verily it is an ill wind that blows nobody good.

The Waltz is, therefore, in its effects, fearfully disastrous to both sexes, but nevertheless the woman is the greater sufferer—physically, because what is fatal excess for a woman may be only hurtful indulgence for a man, and morally, because she loses that without which her beauty and grace are but a curse—man's respect.

And her punishment is just, her fault being more inexcusable than his. For woman is the natural and acknowledged custodian of morals. It is she who fixes the standard of modesty—a variable standard, it is true, different in different ages and countries, but always sufficiently well-defined. She draws across the path of passion, lines limiting, on the one hand, the license of masculine approach, on the other, the liberty of feminine concession. To a certain extent man may blamelessly accept whatever privileges she is pleased to accord him, without troubling himself to consider "too curiously" their consistency with the general tenor of her; decrees. It is her discretion in such matters that must, in a large, way, preserve the race from fatal excess. When, therefore, she shamelessly violates this sacred trust which nature and society have confided to her, it is to be expected that the ball-room rouÉ should regard her as something lower than the harlot, who at least ministers to his lusts in a natural manner.

But, what is worse still, she also loses moral caste with those who have more than a negative respect for honorable women. For even your gentleman is no professor of heroic virtues, and the same easy courtesy with which he dismisses the soliciting courtesan, restrains him from wounding, even by implication, the merely facile fair being whom favoring fortune has as yet prevented from taking to the street. He dissembles his disgust, begs the honor of her hand for the next dance, flutters her pulses to her soul's satisfaction, and regards her ever thereafter with tranquil, philosophical contempt. And so they come to mutually despise each other; she sets no value on his flattering praises, he no longer cares for her good opinion—the wine of woman's approval has gone stale, and the sunshine of man's admiration is darkened in her eyes.