From the Ball-Room to Hell | Page 5

half its pleasure if the woman was
not as nearly nude as she dare be.

The male companions of the two girls are handsome and fashionable,
but of their character not so much can be said, except in condemnation.
They are certainly pleasing, and are in every way endeavoring to be so
to their young lady companions, and appear to have succeeded very
well in their efforts, for, as they whirl over the floor, they gaze into the
eyes gloating over them and gleaming with a fury of lust. They allow
words to be whispered to them which they would not listen to at any
other time; listening now, they come closer still, and in response to a
pressure of her hand, his arm tightens its clasp of her waist, and she,
losing all restraint, yields herself to the evil passion of the moment.
Thus the fury of lustful thought becomes mutual and is mutually
enjoyed.
The second scene is in a summer house. Only four characters are
required for this act. They are the four we have particularly noticed in
the ball-room scene.
This, too, would be a pretty scene, if the pleasure of it were not spoiled
for us by the evil we see in it and know may result from it. The summer
house, covered with vines and flowers, is in a beautiful garden filled
with shrubs and trees. The night is calm and cloudless, and the silvery
moon looks sadly down upon the scene through the branches of the
trees.
The girls have been invited to retire thither for rest and refreshment.
The men have previously arranged with a servant for the refreshments,
with plenty of old wine provided for their use, and now they urge the
ladies to partake, saying they will feel refreshed and be sustained by it
for the remainder of the evening.
After much coaxing and pleading they are induced to take a glass. This
accomplished, the men feel that their object is as good as achieved. The
wine soon has a visible effect upon the unaccustomed brain, and the
girls are easily induced to drink more.
The third and fourth acts are only repetitions of the first and second,
and the last and fifth takes place behind the scene. The curtain must fall
between us and the going home scene in two hacks to which the half

intoxicated girls have been conveyed by brutes in human form.
We only know that these girls are now unable to resist, if they were to
try, the deed of shame their male companions are bent upon doing, in
that closed carriage, whose driver has been ordered to go slowly, and
we know what has taken place, as in after days we see these girls no
more in respectable society, although their accomplices still appear as
most elegant and highly respectable gentlemen, alias ball-room
Apollos.
This tragedy, my friends, was acted out in real life, and is only a
sample of hundreds and hundreds of cases of which I have had personal
knowledge.
"But," some mothers say, "I know that I can trust my daughter. The
waltz may be the means of leading astray some shallow, low-minded
girls, and may arouse the lower nature of some of those whose lower
nature lies very near the surface, but such girls would go astray anyway.
My daughter is a pure, high-minded girl, and I am sure she is
trustworthy."
I am glad she is. Keep her so, my friend, keep her so. Do not risk
making her otherwise by placing her under the greatest temptation that
can possibly come to a girl.
If you place her in the dancing academy or ball-room she cannot and
will not remain what you say she now is, and she has but a
comparatively small chance of escaping ruin--comparatively only a
small chance, I say.
It is a startling fact, but a fact nevertheless, that two-thirds of the girls
who are ruined fall through the influence of dancing. Mark my words, I
know this to be true. Let me give you two reasons why it is so. In the
first place I do not believe that any woman can or does waltz without
being improperly aroused, to a greater or less degree. She may not, at
first, understand her feelings, or recognize as harmful or sinful those
emotions which must come to every woman who has a particle of
warmth in her nature, when in such close connection with the opposite

sex; but she is, though unconsciously, none the less surely sowing seed
which will one day ripen, if not into open sin and shame, into a nature
more or less depraved and health more or less impaired. And any
woman with a nature so cold as not to be aroused by the perfect