Birmingham state herald. (Birmingham, Ala.) 1895-1897, 1896-08-08
artner's arm and leaned heavily upon

minutes later and told the hackman to
take her home, giving the address.
This night has perhaps started that
child to her ruin. A ball like this has
little virtue in 1t, and it will have less the
longer 1t continues" was the reflection of
the man as he turned to the room where
the dancers were.
The merrymakers were growing more
noisy each minute, the musicians seemed
to enter into the prevailing spirit and
the stately music which had been rem
dered early in the evening was discarded
and popular airs. galops and quadrille
music was played in a manner to induce
the most lively action possible. Bits of
May songs were sung, some of the
dancers were yelling almost constantly,
in the waltzes many of the girls were
taken bodily from their feet and carried
in the movement by the men, while In the
quadrilles the fairies were swung and
turned with reckless freedom and force
that often sent them actually sailing
through the air. When this was done
the girls landed smiling, a general guffaw
followed, cheers were given and the
dance went on and on. OF course, with
so many unsteady dancers, many of them
fell. But what of 1t? What If a drunken
couple went down and others stumbled.
and a half dozen men and women were
piled in heap? Was 1t not done all for
charity and on mardi gras night?
What 'ell?" They could get I'M
LHnBleu some time, anu Will every SGuo0
dulled to properties what did 1t matter
so long as no bones were broken?
While watching the ball the newspaper
man was attracted by a roar of sound
beneath him. A woman was singing.
He caught an occasional note, but the
female voice was drowned by an ava
lanche of masculine tones which were in
tended for applause.
The bar was beneath the stage and to
reach 1t 1t was necessary to descend
flight of steps. Making his way to the
stairway. the late conner encountered
struggling body of men. The stairway
was damned with men and women going
to and coming from the barroom To
make any headway was like ploughing
through a college football team, and fire.
quent quarrels occurred.
And on the stairway were men and
women ascending and descending, angels
of-what? 1t was vision for only
Jacob with delirium tremens. No sober
man could have dreamed such a thing.
Truth is stranger than fiction"
Five beers here" six beers; give us
some whisky" two beers, Mr.. Bar
keep" Hey, there, for Gods sake, give
us some beer down here" On 1t, we've
been here for an hour; give us some
beer" 'Lemme in there"
Such were the snatches of speech
which rose from a hundred men and
women as they pushed, pulled and showed
in and about the long bar 1t was pic
ture, but in the same room were half
dozen small tables. At these sat men
and members of the demi-monde, drink
ing or past the stage Of further indul-
gence. Generally the man would recline
lifelesslike in his chair, while his better
capacitated partner would sit and view
in besotted, distracted way the scenes
being enacted about her.
Down in the lower end of the room a
crowd of jeering, cheering men crowded
about a table TO which they had carried
and on which they had placed a girl Of
the to, known as Georgia. She was
scantily dressed and her admirers were
Juggling at her, some desiring to see her
even more decollete.
She was singing the late songs of the
stage and some which are heard only in
questionable resorts. She interspersed her
singing with high kicks, which given as
they were, from the table, created the
widest, maddest kind of enthusiasm
among the men about her.
Georgia, Georgia." yelled the drunken
fellows, and cheers and tigers were given
over again. Then she would stop sing
ing and speak. Yes, address her audi
ence with a rambling, thick-tongued
harangue on the evils Of their action and
lives.
Oh, irony, sarcasm, satire!
Time and again some overly enthusi-
astic, drunken fellow would force his way
to the table, seize the gay entertainer,
drag her from the table and clasp her in
his arms in rapturous manner. Fight
ing herself from his embrace, she would
soon be mounted on the table again, con-
tinuing her speech and song. Such was
that living picture.
Later on another man about town was
seen to seize another one of the women
in the bar. In an instant he was on his
all-fours and, compelling her to accept
him as saddle horse, he made her sit
1. u !. IL L. Id
the floor, much to the delight of the cha
otto mass of human characters about
him.
Turning away, for 1t was almost A
O'Clock, the newspaper man left the scene
of bacchanalian and lustful debauchery.
As he started to mount the stairs a stag
gerlng young man began to descend.
The reeling fellow lost his balance, and
after terrible fall landed in a heap at
the bottom with a bruised and slowly
bleeding face. The grin of a beastly
drunken man came over his countenance,
he relaxed all muscles and lay In the cor
ner making no effort to rise. Two of his
friends came to him and assisted him to
his unsteady legs.
Upstairs again and the newspaper Wis
itor was greeted with the strains of
Home Sweet Home" In an instant
he thought of poor John Howard Payne,
the author. The contrast between his
pure, sweet soul, his simple, touching
song, the worlds adopted melody, and
the present occasion of Its rendition was
repulsive, and yet 1t proved to be the
birth of beneficial reflection. He did
not stay to see the departures for nome.
He had seen the charity ball from to
4 o'clock a. m. Seeds of evil had been
sown. Would the harvest be greater
than the United Charities of the city
could garner and preserve?
"Trilby" O'Farrell will be at
LakevieW next week, opening
Tuesday night, August IL.
loo, zoe, soc.
Music at East Lake for