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Show !Tja.MnKS'iM."-.rates !Tja.MnKS'iM."-.rates f an on '.' ES EKO TO LEST cussing the revival of roller skating, which wag a great fad twenty-five or thirty thir-ty yean ago, said: "The improvements in roller skates, even In the last fifteen years, have added greatly to the enjoyment of skating. The adjustable lateral and swivel movements Of the roller keep the flat surfaces on the floor all the time, making falls much more Infrequent than they used to be when, at every stroke, the wheels ran on their edges and were apt to slip, from under the skater." ' Not 'Craze, Says Manager. "How long do you think the erase will last this time?" was asked, . . . "I do not think It Is a craze now In the sense that It. was a few years ago," the manager answered. "That Is to say, people peo-ple enjoy It now in a much saner way. It used to be a boisterous sort of frollo in which refined ladles and gentlemen did not care to take part. Now the rinks are patronized by a wholly different class of people. The patrons are orderly because they are the kind that choose to be so. The rowdy element does not seem to care for this kind of sport. Indeed, at nearly all the "rinks now running the rowdy would -feel out of his element, even If the managers would tolerate him. The improvements In rinks, in management, in skates and In all things connected with roller skating have attracted the better classes, and, for that reason, I think the roller skate has come to stay this time." So, if the manager's conclusions are right, roller skating may be set down as a permanent recreation, to take its place beside dancing. Many of its devotees seem to be quite sure that the roller skating instructor will soon take the place of the dancing master. In the matter of roller skating, don't commit yourself Irrevocably to the opposition. oppo-sition. You 'never can tell at what moment mo-ment the craze may seize you and send you off with wheels whirring in your head and at your heels. Nobody seems to be utterly proof against its enticements. On the floors of the rinks that have opened this season you may . see all sorts of skaters, from the gray-haired old chap, who looks like the picture of last year sliding off the edge of a New Year's card, to children so tiny that you wonder won-der how they can have learned to skate so soon after learning to walk-All walk-All Classes Indulge. j Of course, the young man and his girl constitute the bulk of the crowd If on may be forgiven for using so unbeautlful a word as "bulk" to describe the smooth, easy flow of people who glide so fast and so gracefully, as a rule, wljh so little manifest effort. But for the fact that occasionally oc-casionally one of the skaters spraddles all over the floor, the word "host" might be more appropriate, since it suggests winged flights of airy beings. And, really, the young man and his girl, whether they be Hank and Mayme. or Mr. Somebody and Miss Beautiful, generally show off to much better advantage on the floor of a rink than on the floor of a ballroom. You May Be a Victim-It Victim-It is all very well for you who have never been on roller skates to stand by women skating solemnly round and round a rink, but you Just wait till the "feel" of its fascination gets into your blood, and likely enough you'll not only fasten skates to your feet of an afternoon or evening, but will wear them in your dreams Ions after you have gone to bed. There is no such thing as certain immunity, im-munity, for anybody. Even the loss of a leg or two is not enough, it seems, to deter the man who has set bis mnd on roller skating. Different From Autoing. The pleasure of skating differs from that of automobiling in that you do not have to go stark mad in order to experience experi-ence it. With your scoot -bugKV whizzing along at sixty miles an hour you become an ecstatic maniac. You don't know whether the thing is going to be right side up or upside down at the end of the run, and you don't care a continental. You are keyed up to a point where you don't give a hoot or a honk for law or life your own or any other fellow's. But rallar sVitln Is different. Thero is a calm, pleasurable sense of your own power in It. You are not merely rushed through space by an Insensate machine. You furnish your own propulsive power and the ease with which you movo the very large return you get for a very small expenditure of force gives you that same serene pleasure of mastership which you feel when, in your dreams, you do amazing stunts in midair with no more exertion than that seemingly employed by an eagle drifting on motionless outspread wings. Take It Seriously. The writer stood, the other evening, watching some two hundred men and women wo-men skating round the outer edge of the pavilion with its 15.000 square feet of skating surface, and the thing that most Impressed me was the serious, almost solemn aspect of the' skater. There was hardly a smile upon one of their faces. Round and round they skated as if it were the most serious thing in life. The manager of one of the rinks, dls- |