Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1909-03-12
new YORK AT LARGE
Some of the Places Which Supply
the "White Slave" Market.

A RAMPANT HOBBY-RIDE IN A COL
LEGE.
This city has the unenviable reputa-
ton of being the largest dealer in what
is called ''The White Slave Market"
and lot of good people, who have been
ferreting out the sources of supply are
COM bining to make determined fight
against the public dance halls, lot of
which are more dangerous to the morals
of the community than am equal num-
Der of low-down barrooms. Other cities,
which have not yet been infected by
the dance-ball nuisance, would do well
to sit mp and take notice. The begin
ming of this evil was innocent enough.
In city in which not more than one
family in twenty has house to itself
and not one in fifty has room large
enough for couple to dance in with
out danger to the furniture, there arose
demand for places that might be hired
by social acts for evening parties, which
generally implied dancing. Teachers
of dancing, most of whom owned halls
suitable to their business were the first
to respond, but they were as particular
about the attendance as if they were
letting out church parlors. They insist
ed upon lot of "patrons," to act as
chaperons, and stipulated that nothing
stronger than water should be served.
But another class Of men and women
who could teach dancing saw there was
money in the sshall' business, more
money if they did not ask questions,
and big money if they could sell liquor
on the premises or arrange for drinks
to be sent in from the nearest bar. Most
young people like to dance, especially
in town where every other diversion
is too costly for the masses; most moth
ers are too tired after dark to escort
their daughters; the majority of work.
ing girls think themselves quite COM
petent to take care of themselves, so
many thousands of them have accept
ed invitations to dance-halls where i'm
proper, though well-dressed women
abounded, and merciless hunters lay
in wait for prey that could be sold into
something worse than death. The cru
SADIE against these9plague-spots is to be
conducted on the competition plan;
wherever there is bad dance hall or
even one under suspicion, decent one,
under respectable management, is to
be established near by, and decent wo-
men who have daughters of their own
are to be put in charge.
When lovely woman has plenty of
leisure and great big hobby to ride
she can make herself appallingly trou-
blesome to fellow-beings, and when
dozen or more of such women have time
and inclination to ride the same hobby
at given place, something is likely to
break; generally it is the temper of the
saner persons present. Columbia Col
lege, in this, has an endowed lecture
ship on humane treatment of animals,
and the lecturer was interrupted few
days ago by crowd of women who
insisted that he should speak against
vivisection. His explanation that the
topic had not been assigned to him
but to another lecturer availed
h hivsa Of n of ho hod
come to free their minds, they knew
how to free them and they proceeded
to do it, the unoffending lecturer being
the principal sufferer. Had few men
made similar disturbance in a college
lecture-room open to the public only by
courtesy, they would have been hailed
to the station-house as disorderly char
acters but it seems that women's ad-
mitted rights do not yet include free
ride in the "Black Maria" police wa
gon-not, at least, for women in fash
ionable attire and who do not smell of
liquor. 1t is whispered about the cor
ridors of the college that, scientifi cally
speaking man is an animal, lecturer
is man, and the lectureship referred
to was endowed by the late Henry
Bergh, founder of the Society For the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the
S. P. G. A. should send some of it's off,
GERS to protect coming lecturers against
malignant torturers in. the sem blance
of woman.
1t is tradition of modern New York
that Sunday observance laws, like eggs
and lovers vows, were made to be
broken. 1t is also plain to every one
that The majority of the residents have
but little respect for the Sunday laws
imposed upon them by majority Of
the country members of the. legislature,
who insist on ruling the city. The
greater part of the men, as well as all
women above the sidewalk class, ap
prove of closed barroons on Sunday
but some great classes, which include
many churchgoers, protest against reg
ulations that seem to have been made
for the sole purpose of assuring dis
malness to millions who must take
their recreation and social enjoyments
ON Sunday or not at all. 1t took 6
hard fight to open on Sundays thu
city's two great museums in Contra
Park although no one could explain
why it was more sinful to look at pic
lures, statues, antiquities, natural his
tory specimens, ETC., on Sunday thar
at the animals and trees and flowers ir
the Park. The newest kick against
the bluer Sunday restrictions is from
the German American Alliance, ar
immense society with which is affiliat