cipal dancers, such as Bonafanti,
and Morlacchi, of course, have an easier time than the ordinary ballet
girls, but all work hard.

It is commonly supposed that the ballet-dancer is of necessity an impure
woman. Too many of them are; but, as a class, they are much abused.
They work hard, and do not have much leisure time, and deserve more
sympathy than reproach. Men, especially, think that, because they appear
on the stage in a state of semi-nudity, they are immodest and of easy
virtue; and in New York there is a class of men, of nominal
respectability, who appear to regard ballet-dancers as their legitimate
prey. They exert all their arts to lead these poor girls astray, and are
too often successful. There is not a ballet-dancer in the city but can
tell many a tale of persecutions of this kind; and if ever the devil
employed a legion of emissaries to do his work, they must be the
grinning, leering men who occupy the front seats in the theatres during
the ballet performances, and who spend their leisure time in seeking to
compass the ballet-girl's ruin.

The ballet-girl, says Olive Logan, "is a dancer, and loves dancing as an
art. That pose into which she now throws herself with such abandon, is
not a vile pandering to the tastes of those giggling men in the orchestra
stalls, but is an effort, which, to her idea, is as loving a tribute to a
beloved art as a painter's dearest pencil touch is to him. I have seen
these women burst into tears on leaving the stage, because they had
observed men laughing among themselves, rolling their eyes about, and
evidently making unworthy comments on the pretty creatures before them,
whose whole heart was for the hour lovingly given over to Terpsichore.
'It is _they_ who are bad,' said Mdlle. B--- to me, the other night; 'it
is not we.'"

The majority of the ballet-dancers dwell with their parents, but many of
those in the upper ranks of the profession like the freedom of Bleecker
street, and reside in that thoroughfare. Thompson street also contains
several boarding-houses patronized by dancers and burlesque actresses. A
writer in the New York _World_ gives the following clever sketch of the
more prosperous ballet-girl at home:

"It was strictly a theatrical boarding-house, and all the young ladies
were dancers. 'It would never do to have anybody else here. Mrs.
Sullivan is Miss Jones's dresser at the "Adelphi," and she has kept house
here some years. Her husband was an a