Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1903-06-26


do most vehemently protest against
the promiscuous dance hall ut our
summer watering places. 1 know or
what i am speaking. I am not
stranger 10 the social etiquette OF this
world. With my parents. l have lived
all my life I'm the cities and have sum-
mered I'm Bar Harbor. Saratoga, White
Sulphur Springs, Ashevilie, Asbury
Park, Marthas Vineyard and many
other notable summer resorts. l have
associated during those vacations with
the rich and the poor alike. And
believe the hotel ballroom and the
summer dance hall are among the
most awful cesspools of mental, phys
zeal and spiritual destruction. They
are the places where the young men
and the young women from the very
best OF homes are often irresistibly
drawn into life OF worldliness, OF
sin and OF eternal death. Men and
women whom l address today, l defy
you TO find one man or woman OF
noted spiritual power who will con-
tend that the summer ballroom Is
safe place I'm which to allow our sons
and daughters TO pass the summer
months. / defy you to find one young
man or woman who ever learned the
lesson Of Christ love in the fetid at
mosphere OF public dance hall.
The Mora, Death.
The public ballroom OF the summer
vacation can aptly be termed the place
for the Dance OF Death" William III.
Ainsworth. the famous English novel.
list, once gave a description OF such q
dance. 1t was during the famous
plague which devastated the city of
London few centuries ago. The
homes OF thousands and tens OF thou
sands were deserted. Thousands upon
thousands were dying. Thousands up
on thousands were dead. The dead
carts used TO make their rounds every
day. The drivers, seated upon their
piles of stenchful corpses. would call
out your dendw Decomposed corpses
would be brought out and the drivers
would throw them upon their carts as
q scayepger might toss d dead dog into
his wagon. During that awful plague
many of the young people rifed the
wine cellars OF the homes OF the
wealthy citizens. They took possession
Of the deserted cathedrals. They turn
ed the churches into dance halls. They
danced and drank during the night.
They danced and drank during the
day. When one OF their number you'd
fall In the dance the dancers would
stop and lift up the dying man or
woman and carry the body out OF the
room TO await the arrival OF the death
cart. 1t was an awful time. But II
we could look below the surface and
know the subsequent lives of some of
those dancers whirling around the
summer bathrooms we should find that
the fatalities. physical, moral and spir-
ttual, are almost rs appalling as In that
great plague. The summer ballroom
has not even the excuse of physical
benefit. Is II not n place for physical
deathf Can our boys and girls go
there and dance until after midnight
and expose themselves as they do and
return to the cities strong men and
women? Do not consumptions and
pneumonias and fatal physical dis
eases Of all sorts hover about every
public dance hall?
Is not the public dance hall OF the
summer vacation the place also of
moral death? We are very careful
with whom our children associate In
the city. Are you justified in letting
that young man, about whom you
know practically nothing, speak what
he would into the ears OF your young
daughter as he moves about In the fas-
cinating dancer People may call me
hypercritical. They may say I am try
ing to stop our young people from bav-
Ing fun. But 1 say that any place
which has done the physical and moral
damage the summer dance hall has
done our children ought to be forbid
den 10 enter. am not so much afraid
that our young folks may enter the low
halls OF evil resort as am that they
may enter the vestibules which will
lead them into those Satanic dens.
firmly believe that the summer dance
hall Is the place where during the next
Few months thousands upon thousands
OF our young people will have their
immortal souls destroyed.
Avoid Games OF Chance.
Summer red light the third: Beware
OF all games of chance. What does
that mean? Beware of joining the
gambling game, which will be played
every night in the side room Of the ho-
tel which opens into the hotel bar,
which game will be kept up until 3 or
o'clock in the morning. Beware OF
commingling with the ''plungers" gath
cred before the bookmakers' stands at
the famous summer races? Oh, no. 4
would no more expect you to be found
In such fiagrantly compromising posi-
tons than you would expect to find
your pastor there. But beware OF the
insidious beginnings. Beware OF wa
gering the box Of candy upon the game
OF tennis or quoits which is played In
the hotel grounds Beware OF betting
the penny upon the simple game which
Is played upon the hotel porch. In
other words, beware of taking your
nrst lessons IN one OF the most awful,
the most fascinating and the most de-
structive OF all evils. the gambling evil.
When the poisonous desires OF a
game of chance are once inoculated
into young mans heart there seems
~ NC nv Atihuh pOWtE 10 stop MIN
from committing mental. physical and
spiritual suicide. Senator Chauncey
NJ. Depew OF New York city, whom
even the most literally minded men
would not charge with being a bigot,
once gave this startling testimony: a
considerable proportion OF failures in
business and 90 per cent OF the de-
falcations, thefts and ruin of youths
among those who are employed In
places OF trust are due directly TO
gambling. have seen I'm my vast en-
pioyment so much misery caused by
the head OF the family squandering his
savings In policy shop and promising
young men led astray In small way
and finally becoming fugitives or land
Ing In the criminal dock that 1 have
come to believe that the community
which licenses and tolerates public
gambling cannot have prosperity In
business" With such an impressive
warning as that before us, can we