heir members who dance.

The ministers, in a great measure, set the standard of morality in our
land, and when they will rise to the occasion and make a long strike, a
strong strike, a strike altogether against this ball-room curse,
Christian people will strike with them. Then, and not until then, will
this evil be wiped out.

It is at the cause and not the effect that the strike must be made.

In some cities the advisability of closing all the houses of
prostitution by laws has been discussed.

One might as well try to stop the Mississippi river from flowing by
damming it at its mouth, as to try to stop this great stream of vice by
closing the doors of the brothel.

To dam the river at its mouth would only cause it to overflow its banks
and seek another outlet, and to close the doors of the brothels on one
street would only drive them to another.

To stop this great tide of sin we must begin at its source. To close the
doors of the brothel, close first the doors of the dancing school.

CHAPTER IV.

ABANDONED WOMEN THE BEST DANCERS.

The most accomplished and most perfect dancers are to be found among the
abandoned women. Why? Because they are graduates of dancing schools.

If any should wish to ascertain the truth of this let him ask the girls
themselves.

I have for several months been working in a Mission of Los Angeles, and
where I have before seen causes at work, I have now had ample
opportunity of seeing the effect, and I have often heard some of these
unfortunate ones cry out in bitter anguish "Would to God that I had
never entered a dancing school."

The following 200 were cases of girls who are to-day inmates of the
brothel whom I talked with personally. They were frank to answer to my
questions in regard to the direct cause of their downfall, and I
gathered that these were ruined by:

Dancing school and ball rooms 163
Drink given by parents 20
Willful choice 10
Poverty and abuse 7
----
200

I know of a select dancing school where in a course of three months
eleven of its victims are brothel inmates to-day.

CHAPTER V.

EQUALLY A SIN FOR BOTH SEXES.

I have, in the preceding pages, spoken chiefly of the harm that comes to
women from dancing, and have shown how vile men make use of the
privileges the waltz and its surroundings afford to