CHAPTER XV.

THE “SCHOOL.”

Ask any old and experienced officer on the police force, What does more to corrupt the morals of the young men and young women of this city than anything else, and he will answer almost certainly, “These dancing schools.” And if he added that they also did more to undermine the constitutions of many a “buirdly chiel and bonny lassie” than even the doctors do, he would also be right. You will hear a young man or woman talk about “going to school,” but you do not need to be deceived into thinking that they are taking a course at the public night schools. The arts taught in the school that they attend, they are already probably very proficient in.

Some eight or nine years ago these dancing assemblies were very common, and were attended by nice people, but year by year they have grown worse until the average “school” of the present day would be shocking and ruinous to any girl of correct sensibilities.

The “school,” and its congener the hop, or dancing social, is invariably held in some public hall. A committee is formed by a number of young men, who stand to make some money if the “school” is a popular one. The committee should be composed of fighting men, as there is a good deal of constabulary duty to be done. At most of the schools the fair sex are admitted free, and quite a number of the blushing damsels who cannot get a “fellah” take advantage of that rule. When they get into the hall, however, they run a fair chance of

PICKING UP A CAVALIER

who came to the festivities unattached. On one occasion a spectator who had made up his mind to pry into the mysteries of a school which met in an east end hall, near Queen street, was rummaging for his entrance fee when a buxom young lady came blithely forward and addressed the janitor in a tone of reproach, “You’re not going to charge the reporder, are ye,” and the change collector expressed himself to the effect that he never had any intention of charging such a distinguished personage. Mendacious youth!—he had his hand extended for the coin and a fixed expression on his face that meant to get it or die. I did not remember having ever been introduced to the lady before, but I was very grateful for her kindness and flattered that I was so widely known. Seeing that I was known it behooved me to retire to a corner far from those who knew me. I had not long been there, however, before another man in a shepherd tartan shirt and minus collar or tie came up and volunteered to give me any information concerning the ladies and gentlemen on the floor which I desired. Without being bid he went off into graphic biographical dissertations on these, but as they were of an exceedingly scandalous nature I would not promise him that they would be published. One lady, whom he designated Big Mouth Moll, and who must have rivalled Messalina in the variety of her amours if this young man were to be believed, he was especially severe upon.

“Will you put that in, reporter?” he said.

I explained that Miss B. M. Moll was undoubtedly a lady, and that it might wound her feelings to publish facts concerning her “little accidents.” He went away very much disgusted with me.

A more intelligent “scholar” whom I met confirmed a good deal of my collarless friend’s unfavorable account of

THE GENERAL MORAL TONE

of the assembly. He said he knew them all, and that they nearly all worked in different industrial establishments in the city, and that pleasure rather than lucre ruled their lives.

One young woman was calculated to attract attention in particular. Her face was colorless, with the exception of a slight flush that seemed to flicker over her sunken cheek. She was languid, and after each quick movement of the dance a quick little gasp escaped out of the faded rose of her lips. Everything betokened a life being extinguished by consumption’s chill embrace. She was an object for tender solicitude, but the burly curly-headed young ruffian who dragged her through the dance seemed not to be aware that a grisly guest was following at his heels to claim his partner for another scene than this.

I gathered from a remark made by one of the ladies that something had been going on of which I had not been cognizant. She whispered that “O’Brien was as drunk as Billy Bedam,” and investigation showed that quite a number, while not as drunk as the historical Mr. Bedam was in the habit of getting, were pretty well on. Having therefore seen enough to disgust me I left.

This perhaps is an unusually low type of the “school,” but the best is only a degree or two higher.

Most of the persons present were boys and girls born and reared in this Canada of ours. I am confident from what I have observed that these young women will become the wives of these or similar young men, and it is pitiable and humiliating to think that another generation of Canadians will grow up under the tutelage of such parents. Free schools are a failure if they cannot teach a man that squirting tobacco juice over your dancing partner’s shoulder is bad manners.

And yet parents permit their daughters to go to such places, and be dragged down to the level of the lowest, not only in actions and conversation, but in the habits of thought which such associations create.