The Indianapolis journal., 1885-03-13
AT THE RINK.
An Hours Observation of the Giddy Throng
on Rollers.

II
/ Hartford Times
| 1t is evening The rink is made brilliant by
| the light of the electric jets and by the great
throng of lads and lassies and those of more ma
ture age who are not too old to enjoy the scenes
of activity displayed by the younger ones.
1t is an exhilarating sight to 500 skaters of
| both sexes rolling around and around the large
| room In al irresistible whirl Note the ami
| mated faces of the throng as they come troopng
along Of course, all are moving in one direction
and all are intent on their personal enjoyment.
and do not take in what is going on among them
selves. The spectators in the galleries can do
that and gather in the fun without incurring
risks of any sort
Analytic some of the features which have ex-
preston. Here comes couple in their teens;
she with petite form and graceful movement; he
with boyish air, of come up-to me-if youcan."
Her face is happy and as she glides along, lean
ing lightly on her youthful escort she is wonder
ing how she looks, and if she has really succeeded
| in creating anything of a sensation. If she has,
her cup Of happiness is full.
The next in the procession is boy trying to
skate on his head, and is fairly successful Next
comes lady, just turned the first corner, and,
as she is alone, may have sad thoughts of get
ting left But in moment a gay cavalier
glided up to her. raised his hat, and she too,
was moving along with a companion.
The young lady with rosy face, a queenly
form and pleasing movement is made to appear
little awkward from the fact that her gallant is
of dudish form and is not proficient in the art of
roller-skating
Now come two school girls, who glide along
in dreamy state, and seem to be wrapped up in
each other. They waiting for something
what is it! A boy is shot out of the throng of
skaters He came out backward. He made be-
lieve at the start that he had discovered new
backward figure and he evidently came to lay it
at the feet of the dreamy madens, and as he
landed with it they went forward in haste to
take 1T up, but overshot the mark and went
down They scrambled to their feet and with
faces crimson with bushes, they sped on, and
for few minutes they were waiting for no one
| and seemed to have passed out of the dreamy
state.
In the procession were two girls, lovely in
form and feature, who kept their eyes moving
about uneasily. To the right to the left, to the
front, their eyes were ceaselessly directed.
Those bright eyes were in search of somebody
Finally, after crcling around several times, one
of the faces lighted up with brilliancy and with
a nudge to her companion, intended to
convey the information, they are
here, the girl whose sharp eyes discovered the
| objects of their search assumed an Indifferent
| look and stared straight ahead at vacancy. In a
| moment when confronted by two cavaliers, the
girls each let slip ordinations of surprise, if
| their coming was wholly unexpected. Oh those
| naughty girls Then they separated-the girls
| and each went off with their 'feller."
| Now look at this young man. He seems to be
| anxious to emulate the higher branches of the
difficulties of plain locomoton, and he is looking
| at the more advanced ones they show some
fancy figure. man passes him in squatting
| posture, a hand on each knee, the toes of the
| skates aiming at diverse points of the compass.
| The wonder is that one leg didn't start for the
north and the other for the south. The am
bilious young man thought that was easy. He
tried it, and his legs did separate at speed
which would have dismembered them if he had
been six inches taller.
The next feat he attempted to emulate was to
| skate backward The fellow he picked out for a
pattern made four backward revolutions in the
| space Uf Chess- box by tuuchiug his toes at in
| tervals to supply the locomotion. The ambi-
tious young man tried to repeat it Immediately.
| He made one revolution most successfully, and
| then sat down and made the balance of them on
the floor, the rollers to his skates pointing heav-
| onward half the time. 1t didn't hurt him any,
and he was directly on his feet again, trying the
north and south pole act, in which the attraction
| Of gravitation once more caused him to assume
| q horizontal attitude
Before he could pick himself up small boy
| tumbled over him, and in just ten seconds by
| the rink clock a goed-sized heap of animation
was on the floor struggling to regain the perpen-
| dicular The boy was the first to struggle out
of the confused mass, and seemed to be glad that
! he had got away with his life. fpa'I