SCANDALOUS DANCES.

BROUGHT FROM FRENCH CASINOS TO AMERICAN PARLORS.

We have constantly reflected in our "good society" and "fashionable world" every baseness and vulgarity that is invented outre mer, particularly in Paris. One woman returns to smoke cigars, in a magnificent home erected by a lucky mechanic or shopkeeper, as if such an indecency had ever been tolerated among the well-born and well-bred people of the social metropolis. Others, copying from their probable associates abroad, introduce obscene dances, and other licentious amusements, which for a season have baffled the police of foreign cities, and boast of their superiority to "low prejudices." All the travelled readers of the International, except clerks, agents, chevaliers d'industrie, and fugitives from justice, know very well that in all the world there is a show at least of moral where there is real social elevation; that these abuses are not anywhere tolerated among families which have kept their carriages for three generations. But we proposed an introduction to a passage written from Paris to the most aristocratic of the London magazines:—

"A new species of dancing, unknown to the Alberts, the Anatoles, the Brocards, the Hullins, the Pauls, and the Noblets, has come into vogue at the Jardin Mabille, and at the Grande Chaumière, situated on the Boulevard du Mont Parnasse, not far from the Barrière d'Enfer. This dance is called the Cancan and the Chahut. It is unlike the waltz, the gavotte, the country dance, the Scotch reel, the Spanish Cachucha, the Hungarian mazurka; is far worse than jota Arragonese, or the most lascivious of Spanish dances of Andalusia. You may remember that in the early days of Charles X. the police of Paris attempted and succeeded in putting down gross and immodest dances; but under the reign of Louis Philippe the spirit of libertinage and dégíngandage, to use a French term, again broke out among the class of débardeurs, and towards the close of 1845 became terrific to behold. You, who know me well, are aware that I am the last person in the world who would seek to put an end to any innocent amusement, or who would contend that the French people should not dance. They have always danced, and will always dance, to the end of time. They danced under Saint Louis, under Henry IV., under Louis XIV., under Napoleon, and why should not they dance now? There is no reason in the world why they should not dance, if in dancing they do not shock public modesty, and offend against public decorum. In the time of Louis XIV. there were public dances at the Moulin de Javelle; in the time of Napoleon there were dances in the Rue Coquenard, and at the Porcherons, near the Rue St. Lazar. In the time of Louis XVIII. and Charles X. there were dances at the Jardin de Tivoli. But at none of these were decency outraged or morality shocked. At Tivoli, the national pastime was indulged with decency and decorum, and although the price on entering was so low as fifteen sous with a ticket, and thirty sous without a ticket, and albeit the dancers were chiefly of the humbler classes, yet, I repeat, in 1827, 1828, and 1829, public decency was not shocked. But from the bal masqué of the Théâtre des Variétés in 1831, when, towards the close of the evening the lights were put out, and the ronde infernale was commenced, obscene and disgusting dances were becoming more and more common in Paris, and continued to make progress till February, 1848. They had attained the most unenviable notoriety in 1845, when at the Bal Mabille a dance was introduced called "La Reine Pomare." Then there was the "Cancan Eccentrique," introduced by a personage called "La Princesse de Mogador," a feigned name, as you may suppose, assumed by some fille perdue. These dances, commenced at the Chaumière and the Bal Mabille, were also introduced at the Bal Montesquieu, at the Bal de la Cité d'Antin, and, if I mistake not, at the Bal Valentino. The principal performers were students in law, in medicine, in pharmacy, clerks, commis voyageurs, profligate tradesmen, and lorettes, grisettes, et filles de basse condition.

"I must do the Provisional Government, so much abused, the justice to say, that towards the close of 1848, when these disgusting dances were again revived, the Gardiens de Paris interfered, and proceeded to clear the room if they were persevered in. If this had been done in 1845 and 1846 by that austere minister, who so much boasted of his independence and morality, events might have taken a different turn. But it is now too late to speculate, and it is easy to be wise after the event. But M. Guizot, his préfet de police, and the members of the Government, were warned long before 1845-6 of the profound immorality and indecency of these dances, and they made no effort to put a stop to them. It is because these scandals are now in a course of revival that I advert to this matter at such length. The subject is worthy the attention of M. Carlier, the Préfet of Police, and of wiser heads than M. Carlier. "Selon qu'il est conduit," said Richelieu, and he knew his nation well; "Selon qu'il est conduit le peuple Français est capable de tout." I am no enemy of innocent recreation, as you are well aware, or of harmless, convivial, social, or saltatory enjoyment. But if lasciviousness, obscenity, or des saletés be tolerated in public places, a blow is struck at the very foundations of society. I may not, even in a letter, enter into a minute description of these dances. Suffice it to say, they would not be endured in England, even by women who had fallen from the paths of virtue, unless their minds and hearts were wholly debauched. You see, after so much light gossip, I end with a sermon—a sermon which the least strait-laced would preach under the circumstances."