Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-03-07
The Shimmy Tilt Shocks
Conservative sas They Were
Dismayed a Century Ago

No sooner does the prudent public
first ban. then endure, then embrace, a
questionable ballroom dance than a sue
cessor, undoubtly more questionabl,
from tn point of view OF the conservative,
bobs up. and, of course bobs down as
well. for recognition.
Nobody is discoverable hereabout and
nowadays who can be shocked by or
who objects to the various trots There
is nobody who remarks the difference
between the one-step and the two-step
but the shimmy is omething new, diff
ferent at the moment shocking.
To call a dancing party a shimmy
tilt-such is the vernacular-is. to the
mosback conservative to undignify, by
a name more or less vaguely suggestive
of indecorum, the art of dancing the
poetry of motion, the romance of the
ballroom. to introduce into polite society
the nomenclature of the low life of
Cherry street. Yet there cannot be the
slightest doubt that the progressives
ready will accustom themselves to the
new name and new dance, and that
those who hold out for the old fashioned,
dignified, dull trots, and the archaic
tango, recalling the stately minute, will
be laughed down and danced down by
the progressive, aggressive majority of
young persons.
In a musty little leather-bound volume
gflt-lettered upon the back, 1.-THE Lady's
Library" published 101 years ago, there
appears in a chapter upon amusements
suitable for young ladies the following
advice:
I'm dancing the principal points to
attend to are ease and grace. I would
have you to dance with spirit: but never
allow yourself to be so transported with
mirth as to forget the delicacy of your
sex. Many a girl dancing in the inno-
cency of her heart and the gaiety of
youth is thought to discover a spirit she
little dreams Of"
The author of the little volume calls
young women to the class to which her
advice is addressed, 1.-The porcelain city
of human kind" comparing them with
the rare vases and costly manages which
are treasured and protected.
But before we view with alarm the
tendencies of the times as evidenced by
the unrestrained participation of young
women in the trots and tangoes of yes
terday and their probable participation
in the shimmy tilt OF tomorrow-c'mish
is the actual name of the dance, it
seems. but to the American tongue
"shimmy is the easier word-let us
look in the book and see that the ten
alarming to those who were easily al
armed.
Says our author:
Every one who remembers a few
years back is sensible of the very strik-
ing change in the attention and respect
formely paid by the gentlemen to the
ladies'; their drawing rooms are deser-
ted, and after dinner and supper, the
the gentlemen are impatient till they
retire, How came they to lose this re-
spect, which nature and politeness so
wei entitle them to. I shall not here
particularly inquire. shall only OBJ
serve that the behavior of the ladies in
the last age was very reserved and state
ly. It would now be reckoned ridicu-
ously stiff and formal. Whatever it was
1t had certainly the effect of making
them more respected"
Much was written in 1918 very like
this paragraph from a time-browned
page printed by the Harpers in 1918.
Yet despite cabaret and cocktail and
turkey trot and shimmy tilt, have NOR
ais or manners of women changed great
ly in a century?
and in the affirmative, turn the brittle
leaves of the old books. They will find
that the nervousness of men and wo-
men about the loss of women's former
dilcacy and the increase of her DISPOSE
not grave improperly, was as great in
ton toward levity and indecourseness, if
the days of our great-grandfathers as
it is today.