New Britain herald., 1914-07-24
0H,:hY, BUT NEW YORK
 IS IN BAD SHAPE
Evangelist Says It is Dancing 01
 Brink of He'll.

oA ID OdHClu6 OH lue oIiHh of hell. shudder to think how many slim, we'll shod, twinkling feet are going to carry their owners over into the abyss!'
 This, summed up, was what Bob Jones, the southern evangelist, had to say about the city's tango tea and cabaret belt last night after making a tour of the dance palaces with newspaper reporter.
 Nowhere else in America" said the fiery young preacher, whose fol- lowers declare he is going to be a l second Billy Sunday, "has the devil been so c1everly disguised. Vice in the small cities is naked and ugly. Here all the resources of art and produce an appeal of opulent, har- monious sensuousness that effectually disguises the hideousness of it all. Prefers Hell to Lobster Palace. From Twenty-third street to Sixty-eighth, from Seventh avenue to Fifth, I visited New York's most fa- 1 nous places, and I want to say that if had the choice between spending three hours day in the dance halls and lobster palaces or in hell, I'd choose hell. I'd know where was anyway.
 "The only difference I can see be- tween Manhattan and hell anyway is ed by water.
 'FThe proverbial road to the neither regions may be paved with good in- tentions, but New York's particular highway to the badlands is paved with mosaic of drinks and dances.
 'I saw some 1000 of them at it old men and young girls, young men and old women. On one of your most fashionable roofs I saw a child with hair hanging down her back, tangoing with her father, and moment later a youth of twenty one-stepping with his gray-haired mother. And they call it innocent! The man who finds that sort of thing innocent needs a tonic.
 Tt was the pretense of decency and good -natured, harmless fun about the voluptuous gayety that most astonished me. From the humblest basement dance hall, up through the swellest tango tea to the most expensive roof garden, I think the proprietors of these places com pare unfavorably with the keeper Of the old time disorderly resort.
 "In the old places the warning was writ large over the door for all who entered to read; in the new, every possible allure of lights, color, music, rich food, sparkling wines and clothes is provided so that the young girl glides gently and unconsciously into a very riot of consciousness.
 Drink and dance-dance and drink! That's the programme, pune tuated with innumerable cigarettes.
 Ask any physician what effect al- cohoI has upon a woman. Ask any physioIogist what nicotine does to her nerves.
 Three Mile Posts to Ruin.
 'These are the three mile posts on the road to ruin-drink, dance, cigar ettes And the most fashionable women, the society leaders after whom young girls will pattern, set the seal of their approval and prac- tice upon this modern social plague.
 i've been stunning in many clties but what I saw in New forks streets and on New 'York's dancing women shocked me almost beyond words.
 "Every little trick and subterfuge of the costumes of other places
 hox added eether-really I should say subtracted Ito make the New York girls at tire serve the one single concen'ra'eo purpose of sex appeal
 of God had meant the women to dress like that he surely would have covered their backs with hair. l had +o wait until some of them stood up from the ia bIes to tell what they had on.
 eff I had a daughter of eighteen I'd rather see her dead and in her grave than have her whirling, close pressed in some fellows arms. in the midst of this swarm of silly, cigarette smoking, cocktail drinking, ha1f-clad. empty-headed votaries of the modern dances
 .Tt isn't any wonder the divorce detectives always go to these places to pick up the trail.
 Cause and Remedy. sl
 "The cause? The artificial abnor- mai plane of New York's life. The destruction of home life. The new freedom of women, which so many | of them have converted into license. | The excess of leisure among young | men. The general stacking of moral fibre that men call tolerance because l they don't want to admit it is just | atrophy of their own standards. 1
 'The remedy? What New York needs is some great prophet to make | fashionable again. That | and a million women courageous enough and fine enough to bring |