The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1902-12-15

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competing society among its members
brought down the number of entries for
the grand finale TO twenty-five couples.
Wren the appointed Sunday evening
came-the Sabbath being a great day
for popular dancing in Paris-a short
entertainment and soiree opened the
proceedings. At ten o'clock the solemn
moment arrived. Ranged round the
room were digniied mammas in crack
ling black satin dresses and their best
Sunday gold chains hanging round
their necks. The fathers, generally in
frock coats and black trousers, though
some had scared to evening dress, stood
about and assumed a severely serious
countenance. The young people who
were not among the chosen two hun
dred couple prepared to look on and
criticise, and in the meantime had no
idea what to do with their hands. On
a platform sat the jury, presided over
by the mayor The latter rose, and af-
ter bow and a cough, read out the
list of competitors. AS the names were
called, the couples stepped out into the
middle of the room and stood still, try
ing to look as if they did not know that
everybody was scrutiniZing them.
Nearly all the girls were in simple
black dresses All the toilettes were
the perfection of neatness and taste in
arrangement and cut, even when the
materials were manifestly of cheap
quality. The men wore brand new
ready-made dress suits and very am
pie white gloves. The twenty-five cou-
pies having been marshalled in rows,
each male competitor grasped his part
ner firmly. One, two, three, the band
struck up a GREATNESS rapid waltz, and
off they were. At the same moment
the jurymen, headed by the mayor, left
the platform and came down among the
dancers. Each judge had pencil and
voluminous notebook.
For forty minutes the couples gyra-
ted, and all the while the solemn-faced
mayor and ibis supporters walked
round and round the room, writing
down observations about the competi-
tors as hard as they could. A mans
arm awkward1y placed round a girls
waist was noted unfavorably. More
| bad marks were scored against cou-
| pies who got out Of time when revers-
! Ing. On the other hand, pencils drew
heavy lines Of approval on notebooks in
the case of men who held their partners
with just the right firmness of grip,
girls whose department was gracefully
yielding, and couples who kept success
+ fully in step and never lost their breath
! during the entire ordeal Of forty min
1 ~
single face throughout the dance. Pa
rents watched silently and anXiously.
! Dancers were much too busy to think
of talking. Toward half-past ten
| o'clock some couples showed signs of
tagging energy. Some men were obvi-
ously feeling the heat, some ladies had
! to be famed. But still not a couple
dropped out though some began to wa
yer slightly in their steps, and resorted
| to constant reversing as giddiness was
coming on. Ten minutes later, at
twenty minutes to eleven the band
! abruptly stopped. The dancers sank
down into chairs. Parents and friends
rushed round them, chattering, con-
graduating, praising, criticising, COM
menting, all talking volubly, at the top
/ of their voices, and all at once. Mean
while the judges had withdrawn into
another room, notebooks in hand. In
camera they compared their observa-
/ tons. How they collated their notes
and on what exact principles they
drew up their awards was not revealed.
But their decisions, which were, In any
case, to be final, proved to be in ac-
cordance with the general verdict.
When they filed back into the ball
room the mayor called silence, rose and
read out the names of the winning
couples. The prize of four pounds
went to a shy girl in black and still
more diffident youth, who, wonderful to
relate, had been almost unanimously
acknowledged, even by the mothers,
fathers cousins and aunts of rival cou-
pies, to be the most graceful dancers.
Smaller prizes and solemnly Worded di-
plomas were awarded to several other
competitors. One may well imagine
how the laureates of the grand waltz
tournament will henceforth be sought
after in those popular Partisan public
halls of which the Moulin Rouge is en-
phatically not the type.-London Daily
Telegraph.