The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1888-06-13
Sam Jones on Dudes.

Listen: When that girl began the
giddy whirl of the dance in the ball
room, that was the time to get scared.
When you found your boy spending
more money than you ought, that was
the time to get shocked.
Sow cards and reap gamblers. l
know I'm called a transcendentalist
and called Puritan, but God save my
family from cards and profanity, and
whiskey and dances, and let the world
call me what it will.
Sow parlor-dances and reap ball
rooms. Sow ball rooms. and reap
round dances. Sow round dances and
reap dudes and dudines. Sow dudes
and dudines and reap half thimble-
full of calves'-foot jelly. (Applausee
and laughter renewed again and
again.) I wish you wouldn't laugh
any more tonight, for [ never felt so
solemn in my life. For Gods sake
hear me with solemnity and earnest
ness worthy of the cause. But you
say I say so many funny things. II
you only knew how many I have to
keep back you wouldn't blame me fol
the few which creep out.
Hear me, boys, girls, young ladies' Of
Kansas City! I used to dance: I've
danced many night with the girls OIL
nv town. Hear me. If was a fair
average dancing man, and / think ]
was, then no pure girl can 60 out on
the floor and dance another set. Ia
voice, "Hurrah n') Young woman, il
you could but follow the young man
after he has seen you home, to some
bar-room or club and hear the discus
sion of your form and person and youl
virtue itself, you'd never lose your re-
spect and 60 on ball room moor
lSensation.1 The dudes get mad al
me IN. some places and talk about want
ing to slap my jaws. Laughter. But
,,tetheir credit, they know better
-ehan to slap. I'm not afraid to droI
down into q hundred acres of dudes
and not a thing to fight with and all o1
them armed with six shooters
daughter.
The tendency of the Nineteenth CEN
tury Is to dudeism. You dress 8
young buck out, part his hair in the
middle, put on an eye glass, give him
pants which look as though his legs
had been melted and poured into 'em,
put on tooth pick shoes, and every girl
in the town admires him. Prolonged
merriment.) God help you, girls; I'd
rather see ny daughter dead tonight
than sitting in a parlor talking to q
dude. [Apphuse. The good Bishop
of New York says the confessional
shows that nineteen out of twenty
girls meet their downfall in the ball
room.
In all my observation I never knew
q poor, ruined woman who did not &c
to ruin through the ballroom and the
theater. A woman who has lost her
character has lost all, but the boy is
lionized by society. If there's one
deeper, blacker hell than other its fol
the man who crushes purity and vir-
tue under his unhallowed feet. Zap.
plause.] The only thing in the world
which deserves a double barreled shot,
gun and load Of buckshot is such q
man.
A round dance is an ante room to
damnation. I never want to see the
arm of a lecherous man around the
waist of my wife or daughter. I ape
no man. I'll be myself, be true to my
self, and true to truth. All I want to
do Is to stand on the barrel, knock the
bung out, and let nature cut her ca.
pers. =. tApplauss and laughter. ]
may be an idiot and fool, but if I am
not an idiot and fool you'd better
kthink of these things.