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Show ' DANCING. From the earliest days of Utah uninterruptedly to the present time, the people have been great dancers. danc-ers. Learning to trip the light fantastic toe is as much n part of the education of the up-to-date young Utahn as any other accomplishment. It is not in the province of this newspaper to attempt to regulate the amusements of the good people of this state, besides, when properly indulged, dancing is more or less of a healthful exercise, and is an amusement from which many derive great benefit. But the amusement, innocent in itself, becomes a demoralizing factor in the lives of the young when indulged by a promiscuous crowd assembled from all walks of life. The public dance hall, where any and every one may join in the rollicking sport, where the simple introduction of Miss Innocence and Mr. Rounder serves to lay all formal barriers aside, .is not, in our opinion, a place of innocent amusement. Indeed, the operation of public dance halls in many cities of the land became so lax and the conduct con-duct of the dancers and habitues of the places so lacking in the proprieties Tf civilization that it Became Be-came a public scandal. Some cities abolished the dance halls, while others placed such restrictions over them that their operation became unprofitable to their managers, and they were closed up. Sooner or later Salt Lake must follow some such course Beer probably is the greatest curse of the cheap dance hall. Of course, drinking a glass of beer is no crime. The manufacture and sale of the stuff is licensed and permitted under the specious plea that the public treasury needs the money. The revenue rev-enue is great. But when a more or less innocent girl is persuaded to enter a low dance hall, under the influence of the example of her escort and a few beers, her ideas of life undergo rapid change. She imagines the gay scene before her is the real life, without any of the affectations of the "better class" of society. She never did like affectation, anyway, and on her second or third visit she enters into the gaiety of the occasion with little reserve. The more unsophisticated the girl, the "greener" she is of the great big world, the more readily does she succumb to the fascination of the free and easy life before her. She cannot see the misery and degradation which all too frequently result from frequenting these public dance halls; all that is hid from her. She meets the fascinating youth who smokes cigarettes cigar-ettes and hangs his hat on the back of his head and talks so entertainingly about life and how well she dances. Perhaps he accompanies hef holne. If it is late, and it usually is, she has to lie about her whereabouts to her parents or her employer. The young man probably has a night key and he sneaks into the house like a thief, in order hot to' awaken his mothef. It is a pleasant way of spending an evening, they think, and the old folks are just a little old-fogyish old-fogyish in their ideas. But the dance halls are doing a great deal of harm to the young men and women hereabouts. Dissolute persons go there, depraved persons go there, and the'influcnccs there are debasing. It is possible that some more harmful amusement might be invented if the low dance halls were prohibited, which would give us anbther saeia! problem to be t 4 solved. But this possibility should not deter the old-fogies from making a concerted effort to abolish abol-ish this evil. The churches, schools, newspapers and homes of the city should unite in a demand for belter protection to our young men and women. There is enough misery in the world without institutions insti-tutions serving to promote misery. There is enough sin without making the road of the susceptible and inexperienced one of alluring temptations. The influences in-fluences of the cheap dance hall are all bad. Let us have a crusade against it. Our city will then bo purer and more wholesome at least on the surface. |