The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-05-18
VETERANS BALL IS GROWING SOCIAL EVENT OF REUNION Grand March Led By Gen. Bennett Young and
 General Harrison. RECORD CROWD IS
 IN ATTENDANCE Overflow Ball at the Southern Club Is Provided to Accommodate the
 Crowd and is Also
 damned.

Promptly at 9:30 o'clock last night at the Hippodrome, Gen. Bennett H. Young, bearing upon his arm one of the fairest daughters of chivalrous Kentucky, moved sedately down the hall, and the veterans ball had commenced.
 In the wake of the retiring commander of the hosts of the Confederacy moved Gen. George P. Harrison, the new com mander in chief, and he was accompanied by one of Alabamas fairest maids. The grand march was one of the most beau tifuf spectacles of the evening, and the vari-colored and gorgeous uniforms of the vets blended tremendously with the colorful f1uffiness of the feminine ele- ment.
 The crowds at the ball last night were even larger than those in attendance at the ball of the Sons of Veterans, held Tuesday evening at the Hippodrome. It became necessary for the directors of the ball to station cordons of Boy Scouts at the entrances to keep back the surging crowds long before 10 o'clock Ropes were stretched, and the crowds on the floor was constantly shifting. as those who had danced made room for others who desired to dance.
 Third avenue was a mass of struggling humanity from Eighteenth street to the Hippodrome entrance. Seventeenth street was jammed with people to Fourth ave- nue. The crowd was constantly increas- ing and the situation was getting be- yond the directors of the ball. Arrange ments were hurriedly made for another dance at the Southern club, which threw open it's doors to the reunion visitors, and gave one of the most largely attended balls of its history. A man with a meg aphone clambered astride the temporary structure which had been thrown across Seventeenth street at Third avenue, and announced to the crowds attempting to get in the Hippodrome that the Southern club would care for them. This some what lessened the strain upon the Boy Scouts, who were hard put to 1t for a time to retain their positions in front of the Hippodrome.
 Notwithstanding the announcement of the overflow ball at the Southern club however, tn estreet was continually filled with people who awaited their opportunity to gain entrance to the floors at the Hippodrome, and at the darkest hour before dawn this morning all who had hoped to dance had not even had op- portunity to get to the floor.
 The old veterans were thoroughly en- toying everything, however, and the mod ern dances so much in evidence at the Sons of Veterans ball were not to be Seen. Instead of them, the old-fashioned square dance came into it's own, and the spectacle of grizzled old warriors in gor- geous uniforms teaching beautiful young girls of the modern age the dances of half-century ago was well worth all the effort to get to the floor.
 Swing yo' partners"' yelled a stalwart veteran, and the old fellows vigorously hopped around, spinning the girls about, and catching the lady who thought she was the partner of the man she started the dance with. The partners in the old dance were constantly changing, and the younger girls, in experienced in the dances of other years, were bewildered during the first few sets. They soon caught the idea of the dance however and the veterans had the time of their lives.
 The Virginia reel was in popular favor never for moment Jagged. The veterans remained on the floor until dawn, and they were reluctant in releasing the young girls to their young escorts. It was the veterans night. for the young men were not proficient in the old-fashioned dances and man who could not dance the squar edance had no business at the Hip- podrome last night.
 The veterans ball will finger in the memory of the younger set of Birming- ham as the best ball ever given here IL certainly was the most entertaining to the innocent bystander," and the vets enjoyed it thoroughly