OLD BEL LES IN PARISIAN SOCIETY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 72, 24 March 1877, Page 4

OLD BEL LES IN PARISIAN SOCIETY.

There ia one feature that seldom fails to strike ao American observer as odd In these official entertainments, and

that is, the number of old women who participate ih> rain, not as npectators, but rs ac'ual per'ormers. Venerable dames of 50 and 60, with their poor old bones well bared to the public gaze, and with lilies and roses io their dyed tr.saes, fly panting through the maze of the i walls or gallop, while damsels of 17 sitlarpund thej room and /look kt thera. The old women of the French society form, to American eyes, an unlovely and indecorous spectacle. They delighted in displaying their fleshless or over fleshy arras and shoulders in the lowest corsages, they wear pale colored silks and bright-hued flowers, and they dance away like mad whenever, they get a chance. American society has often been criticised for the predominance of tbe youthful element. But youth should do the dancing, and let imiddle-ege and old age do the chaperoning and the looking on, A still blooming matron of 45, in black velvet and: diamonds, renewing the triumphs of her girlhood in the person of her 'daughter* may: it is true have retired iuto the backgrounds too soon. But she is a pleasaate. sight to contemplate than one would be if, dressed ja a white tulle, with pink roses in 1 ber hair, she went gambolling around by (he side of that daughter through tbe mazes of tbe German waltz, in accordance with French Btyle.