The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-28

missionary to whom aboriginal nudity had
become a second nature. Altogether the ball
may be said TO have been q not immoral one.
The spangles that were present were compare
lively spotless. ''Goodness," according to
Milton, may be "awfuI, but integrity is some
times bewitchiDg. 1t was last night lin tights
What perfect paradise il 81" young girl
exclaimed la my car "Yes-Paradse Lost"
was the reply. All could think was that If
lost paradise looked so pleasurabe it must be
worth regalnlng.
Let me say few words about the 'Cercle"
itself. II Is society composed of about one
hundred members, who have well-appointed
club-rooms and who are bound by an oath to
administer to one another's pleasure by as many
means as they legitimately and innocently may.
Many times during the year they meet at these
rooms and transact great deal of pleasure in
short space of time. They are mostly tropic-
natured beings, in whose VEINS the blood is
warm and rapid, and who enjoy life none the
less for using unusual means. Once year they
give grand ball. and during that celebration
the morals of New York grow, for the time, as
tangent to those of Paris as they can become
without efiorescing into morbid exuberance.
The club had secured two new features for
last nights ball. One OF these was the bur
lesque quadrille of Ko-ko-ri-ko, an extravagant
improvisation due to the brain of Brididi, and
invented for the behoof of the Parisian bal
doperd. Another was "Les groupcs carna-
valesques ct les fantasies Parisiennes de creso-
panpopivas." Neither of these had ever been
introduced into this country before. They were
exceedingly well done by the Clodoche troupe
the idea being the representation OF cocks and
hens both in the crow and cackle peculiar to
those ''animiles," and in the impressive steps
they are fond of leaving upon the sands of time.
A third feature of Wednesday evenings ball
was the mutual geniality with which the sexes
wore one another's dresses and converted them
selves into haloed hybridites in regard to whom
it was difficult to say which was which l am
not the only mau who confesses to having been
completely misled by the questionable curves of
a small knee and beautiful leg. One beaming
nondescript of this kind, who ultimately con-
fessed to having got itself up for clark, at
tracted my attention little before midnight. Its
exquisite combinations" were SO delicious in
their fesh-colored coverings, that they were as
absorbing as one of Wilkie Collins novels, and
l could have watched them being continued, and
turned over chapter after chapter of them ESQ
to speak, through all eternity. The upper por-
tion of its person was modestly robed in pale
blue silk, richly and deicately hung
1 approached. We danced together, we senti-
mentalized. Its voice was as soft as flutes,
and its accents rapid as those produced by
the process known rs the "triple tongue" At
length asked ditifitwould give me the pleasure of
its company to supper. 1t assented, and we ap-
preached the supper-room, its blonde curls trem-
bling alrily at every step. At the door of the
supper-room it paused, laid its hand on my arm,
and said in clear tenor, This jokes gone far
enough; IN nota woman and raisingits mask
| it revealed handsome but decidedly masculine
| lineaments belonging to an extremely well-bred
| but certainly precocious adolescent.
| That was the last mask attempted to attach
myself to that evening. We had drink to-
gether, but the invitation to supper was not re-
| peated.
| AS a sct-off to this, an extremely handsome
| girl, dressed in the full evening costume ap-
proved of for gentlemen, might be seen at all
hours, from 10 o'clock in the evening to o'clock
in the morning, walking around, always alone,
| but always followed by a crowd OF young men,
who, somehow or other, never attempted any
| extreme liberties.
The music was remarkably good. Thomas
orchestra was stationed in the topmost gallery,
and rained down musical pltchforks. You
might have put an umbrella up, but your tym-
| panum would have been wet through all the
| same. If anything the music was too good for
| the occasion, and there certainly was more than
enough of it. The ball was thoroughly warmed
| up by midnight, and the last carriages rolled
| away from the Academy about o'clock in the
morning. .... ... s.