The age-herald., 1898-11-13
OLD TIME DANCES
 AND ANCIENT JAGS

ANU hNCltN l JR0S
 "The melancholy days are come. the sad-
 dest of the year." but I'm glad to say that
 this old saw of Bryants doesn't apply to | these delightful fall nights. It is just the weather for dancing. and there is nothing so refreshing to my old heart as to read
 of the merry young people of Birmingham, how they dance and trip the light fantastic on these cool bracing nights.
 But say what you will, the young people these days don't enjoy themselves and | have the good times that we used to have | when I was young map-not so very many | years ago. Their dances don't have the | snap and vim that ours used to have. remember one dance in particular which | our club gave that left such a vivid i'm | pression on my memory that 1t seems to me as if 1t happened only last evening.
 This delightful occasion (we didn't say Function those days) took place in a cer- tain town In Alabama reckon I'd better not mention any names. It was our open ing ball of the season, and of course we fellows had spread ourselves to make the affair a grand success. We ordered the handsomest invitations that could be ob- tained in those days, and sent them to all our fair friends It was to be swell af- fair, and I believed that we would have expelled any one of our members had he dared to come to that ball in any other than full evening dress.
 The eventful night arrived. and 1t wassa
 big day for the hack and flower men, for our fellows "blew'' themselves for all they possessed. The young ladies were never sweeter or more fascinating; the men never looked handsomer; the music never before nor since sounded as sweet to me as 1t did on that night. I was fairly intoxicated with delight, and life seemed all happiness to
 me then. Matthew Black never led dance
 more gracefully than he did that night, and I never saw the minutes glide by so pleasantly. Of course we served punch. It would have been exceedingly childish in young men | like we were not to have done so. On that l punch hangs the interesting point of my l story. It was "loaded" too heavily; at least that is the only way in which have ever been able to account for it's effects. At first it only lent a zest to the dancing.
 
 tangled movements of some of our fellows feet. Loud laughter and talking followed,
 but nobody noticed all these little points. so absorbed were they in the whirl of the dance.
 But the truth could no longer be hid some of the men were drunk-intoxicated. should say. heard it said at the time that something stronger than punch had been on tap down in the mems dressing room, but never believed it.
 When John Young, one of our steadier and more sensible men, fully comprehended the situation, he immediately planned a method of relief, which he proceeded at | once to carry into execution. He seized | the big punch bowl, carried it to the win | dow, and before anybody was aware of what he was doing, he had pouroed it's con- | tents out on the ground fifty feet below, l a sparkling libation rollicking Bacchus. | Oh, what howl this action rascal The | indignation was great
 "I never saw such a sissy said one of the men who posed as passe sport. Just because there are some children here who couldn't stand a little wine, he had to throw all of the punch out of the window. He's a | d-d baby!'
 In the meantime, affairs had taken more | serious turn. Several of the men had drunk | too heavily at beauty's and pleasures shrine and had to be taken home by men who had not been so liberal in their drinks The climax came, however, when the col ored waiting maid, likely-looking lass, who had been in attendance in the ladies dressing room, began to get gay and to | show other signs of intoxcation. It devel- | oped that the walters at the punch bowl | had been slipping out to her drink after ] drink of that fatal potation until she was | at last completely prostrated. Two of the negro walters, also giddy from the effects of the punch fumes, picked her up and car ried her bodily out of the building. By th's time it was getting along in the .'wee sma' hours of morning, and the mu- sic emitted by the band began to have D very shaky sound. I have never heard the cause, but suppose the players were merely tired. The dance broke up about this time, and the au revoirs were said with the usual | manifestation of delightful tlme.' Sew eral of the young ladies found themselves | minus the.r escorts, but there were plenty | of stags present to take their places. l We used to have great times in those good | old days, and it is to be regretted that the dances of these modern times have become l so tame and insipid. OLD BEAU. William Going to Carthagena | Madrid November 12-The Duke Almodo-