The age-herald., 1898-01-09

deny that the exhilarating pastime- the beautiful, swift, gliding motion over the smooth surface of a lake sur rounded by trees covered with snow and frost, and the keen, cold wind, do not make up a delightful outdoor amusement? When to these delights is added a companion with a strong arm and skillfulness surely there are few girls who will not give skating the palm over all winter sports and many summer ones as well.
 In these days, when there is no theme of such vital interest to women as physical culture in all its forms, any sport which will give good. health full exercise is sure to have plenty of followers. Now, the prettiest and most graceful exercise in the list, and one which doesn't involve any sacrifices in the way of corsets, or heroics. in the line of heelless boots and bifurcated garments, health waists, or any of the other notifications of the flesh, is skating. Woman may shine on the ice in her usual belongings, provided the skirt be made a convenient length. She may glide in single solitude or en- ter into dual or triple alliances. All that is demanded of her is that she be at home on her skates and have graceful figure. Then the eyes of every man-aye, and. of every woman-in sight will follow her with admiring and in the latter case often with envi- ous glances. What more is needed 10 make skating popular?
 n,- No fttr hann and denied that lack of grace of mo- ton that is of greater charm even than fairness of face, the best possible way ;n the world to acquire it is fearless skating by learning to balance when executing daring and intricate curves and complicated movements
 The girl who skates knows all about this. She found out all about it first by taking just the opposite course and ex- ecuting headlong plunges and striking unexpected and far from graceful at titudes on her skates. Thus she learned the true meaning of the word poise.
 The shining steel blades that the man she likes best-just then-tightens on her snug little feet suddenly seem in- spired with diabolcal purpose directly she attempts to stand on them. She takes sudden and totally unprepared for pastures, sitting and otherwise, with the skates waving in a horribly undig- nified way in the air in a manner never advocated by teachers of Delsarte.
 If only she knew whether those skates were going to slide backward or for ward, she would manage better, she thinks, with despair
 Then that same nice fellow comes up with a curve as graceful as a swallow, fol bnr ha ndc in nd prIid backward as she follows. He talks all the time to her of something or other, looks into her eyes. laughs, makes her blush with a compliment on her color ing, and all at once, if she be the right kind of girl, she is skating and knows more about boise than all the big waist ed physical culturists in the country, though she couldn't explain it to save her life. And that's another reason why girls love skating.
 The only scientific way to skate is out of doors on a frozen river or lake, with the dazzling winter sunshine above your head and just enough of the ele- ment of danger to keep some one who is very solicitous for your safety and comfort quite near your side. And in the evening, when the smaller boys , kindle the big bonfires on the shore, and the little coves and inlets where the smoothest ice has been left lie in shad- ows like those of Q painting by some olG master, what finer place in the world to get out of sight of hard heart ed chaperons and give a little pleasure to the big fellow who has been helping you all the afternoon and now guides you thither with seeming accident, but with his heart beating so you can al- 1,aa And xxy1,o hot ts.,ae To say the things you know he has been on the point of saying many time, but could not get up the courage to say in a conventional drawing room under the glare of electric lights?
 But perhaps the one thing that will make skating more popular than it could otherwise ever become is the fact that that great and powerful dame, Society, whose magic wand, much as we may claim to ignore it, rules us all, has looked on skating with a pleasing eye and taken it up. The fashionable girls in New York and other places, in- stead of spending all the winter months in the city wishing that Lent were over, nowadays hie themselves to country seats belonging to their parents, taking along a jolly crowd of young people of both sexes, and skating and toboggan- ing and Sleighing parties occupy their time. And as Mrs. Society has smiled on this form of amusement, why, that Is the most potent reason of all why women must skate.
 Those, however, who do not care to go to the country for any period of time or who cannot afford the luxury of coun- try place have solved the problem of skating in the city by following the lead of o.ic xylsi ioI, for. oy.c !, c hod its Palais de Glace.
 The Palais de Glace is simply a cir GUS where ice replaces the sawdust 4oor, and the walls are paneIed with mirrors and painted with scenes from the Mediterranean. Electric light pours down from the chandeliers, gas lamps keep the building at a comfortable tenn perAture, and the chemical fluids flow ing through innumerable pipes below the eurface of the ice keep it smooth and hard like-glass.