GAY COUNTRY BALLS

Hokitika Guardian, 7 April 1926, Page 3

GAY COUNTRY BALLS

"May I have this dance?” "Can yoq pare a dance? "Give me an extra do! No wonder Eve adores the Counts

Ball, the only sort of dance left where she has a. programme anpl—provided she is attractive anil a good dancer—a crowd of men besieging her, writes

Patrick Chalmers in the " Daily Mail.” County and Hunt Balls fall together. The season begins will) a few early affairs in December, readies its height in January and lades out in Februuiy. And this six-weeks period is as great a time in the " Shires ” and " Proviuecs ” as the May-July season, with

its whirl of gay halls, is in I own. But the gull" between Town and County Balls is immense. In 'Town a hostess who provides programmes is voted dowdy. Women do not wear gloves unless the dance is one of exceptional formality. People are rather blase and hard to please.

At the County* Ball programmes and loves are the order ol the night, and .11 that really matters nlmut the ar-

rangements is that the largest possible number of people who know one another should he crammed into the assembly rooms and that the ehampagno should he good. At ttie last County Ball T was at the floor was rough deal powdered over—it was a village hall ; the supper room was a wooden annexe with draughts stopped up with cardboard and putty; and the ladies powdered their noses in a candle-lit side room warmed by a coke stove and with tile bare walls hidden with festoons of flowers and crinkly paper. Sitting-out room was so limited that couples were strolling up and down the quiet village street under the mild, starry sky. r But how gay everybody was! The local M.F.TL had crammed his castlo to the battlements with guests, and every billiards table in the neighbourhood had lieen equipped with mattresses and blankets for tbe overflow. Some people hail motored 100 miles to the dance —you don’t get that ontbusinsm in Town. At no oflier dunces does one see *so much rank hail dancing—such pumphandling. head and shoulder bobbing, knee-prancing, awkward steering and stepping. But where do you find such revelry ami laughter? And it is always charming to know that at the County Balls meetings are taking place which will make local history sliv, appraising, thrilling meetings destined to a hapy ending in a fashioimhle Town or moss-grown old village church gay with flowers for the wedding of the year.