dancing parties is wholly without any evil
design--innocently following a fashion--and if those who thus dress are
really ignorant of the effect it has upon the opposite sex, it is high
time their eyes were being opened. If this be only a fashion, and I want
to believe it is nothing more, but when I remember distinctly that this
manner of dressing for balls and dancing parties has been the fashion
for forty years and that it has never changed, _except to become a
little more so_, and that all other fashions have changed at least
twenty times, my belief staggers and hangs its head for very shame. This
fruit alone has sent hundreds of thousands of men, women and girls to
premature graves, dishonored graves, felons' cells, and to an endless
hell. That this semi-nude condition, in which many girls and women are
seen in the dance, has been productive of a vast deal of sin and crime,
no honest man certainly will deny. In the whirl of the gay and giddy
dance, we see:

Strong men and women fair
Are now within the tempter's snare,
With arms around each slender waist,
Each woman held in _close embrace_.

If all the _thoughts_ could be made known
Of seeds of crime which here are sown,
'Twould cause the _hardest_ cheek to blush
And every _virtuous_ heart would crush.

But so it is, and ere must be,
While men and women thus agree
_To tempt themselves, and others too_,
TO SINS AND CRIMES OF DEADLY HUE.

The following is the experience of a lady whose name is withheld, but
who has distinguished herself in literature, and made a world-wide
reputation:

"In those times I cared little for polka or varsovienne, and still
less for 'Money Musk' or 'Virginia Reel,' and wondered what people
could find to admire in these slow dances. But in the soft floating
of the waltz I found a strange pleasure, rather difficult to
intelligibly describe. The mere anticipation fluttered my pulse,
and when my partner approached to claim my promised hand for the
dance, I felt my cheeks glow a little sometimes, and I could not
look him in the eye with the same frank gayety as heretofore.

"But the climax of my confusion was reached when, folded in his
warm embrace, and giddy with the whirl, a strange, sweet thrill
would shake me from head to foot, leaving me weak and almost
powerless, and really obliged to depend for support on the arm
which encircled me. If my