Life — September 16, 1909 — page 13: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

i eg lc What a pleasing variation from the present generation, To whom dancing is a mere athletic sport, Which, if people toil a lot at, they can get extremely hot at, Just a form of taking exercise, in short! Men, inspired by flute and fiddle, grasp their partners round the middle And revolve till they can scarcely stand upright, While their cousins and their sisters dance their little feet to blisters, . Ev'ry night. When the youthful Spanish hero is performing a b His vagaries nll the bashful with surprise, And when coons among the mangoes try to execute fandangoes, Prudes and pedants sometimes turn away their eyes; But when Anglo-Saxon dancers once “get going" in The Lancers, Things proceed at such a very rapid rate That the antics of Salomé seem quite commonplace, quite hom And sedate. When some poor old fogy flounders, ‘mid a scrum of youthful bounders, Who wake the sleeping chap’rons with their shouts, Other vet’rans cease competing, as they realize retreating, Why such parties may be sometimes known as “ routs."* Wives and daughters join with vigor in the cakewalks of the nigger, In a “barn-dance,"’ or in “two-steps," or “ Strathspeys,” And though skirts be torn to tatters, no one cares, for nothing matters, wadays. MORAL. Now the moral of my story (which I dwell on con amore Is that dancing is no mere gymnastic game; While for anyone desiring cither romping or perspiring, There are numerous pursuits that I could name And the youth who yells and hollers and is forced to change his collars, Should not ever be permitted to take part In the dance which (for the /ast time, let me say) is not a pastime, But an Art. Small Boy “17'S STOPPED RAINING, MISTER” The Echo AVING called the Grocer, the Butcher, the Tailor, the Coalman, the Iceman, the Shoeman, the Milkman, the Landlord, the Dressmaker, the Hatter, the Glover and all the other tradesmen into extraordinary session, we say “Now that the tariff has been revised, you doubtless are prepared to give out some information as to how much of a reduction will happen in the cost of living.”’ Immediately there arises a hoarse and raucous laugh, which seems an echo of the cachinnations and chortles which Con- gress gave to the plea of the Ultimate Consumer. Table Talk “TOVERYONE knows th waste of time," asserted the bachelor of fifty, swallow- ing the sixth little neck clam, and turning to the girl on bis right. “Three or four of the best years of his life are simply thrown away. He studies as little as the rules of the college will permit, and unwholesome habits.’ 1 college education is a sheer quires a lot of expensive and often “Mm. That is true,” answered the girl on his right “ And yet it is generally conceded that a young man cannot spend three years or so to better advantage than as a college undergraduate. to work, how to play and how to keep healthy “Mm. ‘That is true,"” answered the girl on his right Sighing profoundly, the bachelor of fifty attacked the purée of green peas. He develops brain and body, and learns how comicbooks.com