The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-05-22

and roses. Tt was impossible TO tell
where nature ceased and art commence
ed It was a real bank with real grass,
On which you recIined; it was an actual
rose bush over which you bent. yet
among the tangle and brier. cunning
hands had interviewer a bush Of iron,
bearing blossoms of carved and paint
ed metal, with gas jets concealed in
their petals.
The night was cool on the occasion
OF that visit, the season was early.
Mabille was not in the glory of it's
wickedness, and we departed without
witnessing anything worse than q.
waltz, most decorously danced. I re-
member that there Were a number Of
ladies and gentlemen, English and Amer
leans, of course, promenading as
spectators, but not participating in the
terpsichorean performance. I learned
that it was quite correct for ladies to
visit Mabille with their husbands or
brothers once-after that it was always
best for the male element to go alone
A failure to understand that ladies may
visit Mabille brought a needless friend
OF mine to grief. He noticed in the
crowd at Mabille one night the stately
and correct General B. with a yelled
chucHled, and the next day undertook
to rally the General.
saw you at Mabiue last night,
General,"
yes. sir; was there
did you enjoy yourself?"
Yes. sir; very much
You had a lady on your arm when
met your"
Rather nusty in your tastes. Cen
eraI; fifty if she was a day. Should
think you might have picked out a
younger woInanl"
''She was younger, sir, when first
picked her out thirty years ago in
Massachusetts,. That was my wife,
sir,
''Ahi,' and the interview was at an
end
Mabille is, repeat, no more, but its
contemporary still lives, and during
our last visit to Paris we went-"tel1
it not in Gath, proclaim 1t not in the
streets of Aslxalon'-we went to the
Closerie de Lilas.
If you would know the exact social
status of the last-named place, ask
the next Partisan you meet and watch
Presbyterian Church festival, the Clos
erie de Lilas was and is to Mabille. It
is a garden with grottoes, and foun-
tains, and Illuminated shrubs. 1t has
an immense covered dancing pavilion
with a plank floor, and it presents
scene of reckless mirth, OF wild revelry
and Of dashing indecorum.
The Closerie de Lilas is in the famous
Latin Quarter, the home Of students,
and in former days the hot bed of
emeutes. It fronts broad plaza, and
its surroundings are clearly and even
elegant. Hither come in regiments,
each fete night, the traditional disciple
of Galen and Esculapius. with shining
hat, thin legs. bob-coat, weak NOUS
tache and specialized eyes-with grave
face and reckless heart he wl1irls in
waltz and leaps in "can-can.'' Hither
comes the young man from the prov
inces to gaze and gIoat, and tempt
the raging flood Hither comes the
lorette, the shopgirl, the housemaid
and the laundress. The shop girl of
Paris never pretends to be especially |
moral, and usually, to do her justice, |
is not. She does not make immortality |
her trade, however; she has an ostensi-
bic occupation by which she supports
herself, but she goes to the Closerie |
de Lilas, attended or unattended, as
the case may be, and dances in the |
same set with her more pronounced |
sister
The wild music Of the can-can pealed |
over the great floor of the Closerie de I
Lilas. I stood on little raised plat I
form, devoted to spectators and re-
freshnent tables, with my wife shrink |
ing on my arm. A thousand women I
with bonnets on their heads, faced a |
thousand men with shining tiles.
Il don't see anything bad about this /
said the lady. there is not a low
necked dress, not an uncovered arm /
or shoulder in the room, and think it |
is great deal more respectable in /
appearance than the dress circle of the /
Prince of Wales Theater''
wait little" said I, 'sthey don't
proceed to extremities here in the same
way as among the British aristocracy: |
but let US stay, and we shall see a T
commencement performance such as
was never beheld within the walls OF
any American Seminary of learning"
was not a false prophet; the music
grew faster, two hundred pairs of
striped gray pantaloons advanced to
he center, two hundred masculine right
egs made a seemingly vicious effort to
Kick off two hundred feminine head
gears; the head-gears waved like
oriflammes in the gas-light. hands
seized dress skirts. I do not know the
correct Interpretation of the military
order which the band master issued
n French, but from what followed I
think it must have been similar to
close up for there was another wild
BURST of music and two hundred, more
,r less. shapely-more or less-female
eet, went spinning around the heads
# their owners. The girls were the
most enthusiastic dancers ever saw.
t was not any worse than the ballet at
'ur frst-class theatres at home, but it
vas different. They tried to kick of
heir r,artners' hats. thew tried to kick