egged her on to ruin, her self-respect was gone with her lost purity, she
went to her own kind, and in shame is closing her days." "Of two
hundred brothel inmates to whom Professor Faulkner talked, and who
were frank enough to answer his question as to the direct cause of their
shame, seven said poverty and abuse; ten, willful choice; twenty, drink
given them by their parents; and one hundred and sixty-three, dancing
and the ball-room." "A former chief of police of New York City says
that three-fourths of the abandoned girls of this city were ruined by
dancing." Of the dance, one says: "It lays its lecherous hand upon the
fair character of innocence, and converts it into a putrid corrupting
thing. It enters the domain of virtue, and with silent, steady blows takes
the foundation from underneath the pedestal on which it sits enthroned.
It lists the gate and lets in a flood of vice and impurity that sweeps away
modesty, chastity, and all sense of shame. It keeps company with the
low, the degraded, and the vile. It feeds upon the passion it inflames,
and fattens on the holiest sentiments, turned by its touch to filth and
rottenness. It loves the haunts of vice, and is at home in the company of
harlots and debauchees." George T. Lemon says: "No Church in
Christendom commends or even excuses the dance. All unite to condemn
it." The late Episcopal bishop of Vermont, writes: "Dancing is chargeable
with waste of time, interruption of useful study, the indulgence of personal
vanity and display, and the premature incitement of the passions. At the
age of maturity it adds to these no small danger to health by late hours,
flimsy dress, heated rooms, and exposed persons." Episcopal Bishop
Meade, of Virginia, declares: "Social dancing is not among the neutral
things which, within certain limits, we may do at pleasure, and it is not
among the things lawful, but not expedient, but it is in itself wrong,
improper, and of bad effect." Episcopal Bishop McIlvaine, of Ohio,
putting the dance and the theater together, writes: "The only line that I
would draw in regard to these is that of entire exclusion..The question