HOW THE ENGLISH DANCE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2114, 21 October 1890, Page 3

HOW THE ENGLISH DANCE.

The London correspondent of the San Franoiso Argonaut has discovered first, that English men and women are the worst dancers in the world, and, secondly, that no people are so fond oh dancing. Both statements (thinks ah: exchange) will probably come in the light of novelty to our readers. The scene which is to he witnessed in an English ball-room, it appears, is very painful and distressing to the hightoned susceptibilities of Americans, whose dancing, like everything else they , do, is, of course, incomparable. “ Now and then,” the correspondent observes, Arqpiwna sea one or two English exponents in American ballrooms and are struck by their awkwardness, ungainliness, and general ignorance of the art. They are how--1 ever, bo over-shadowed by the native

dancers that their uncouthness is soon lost sight of,” This is the sort of thing according to our unassuming and veraacious friend, which is commonly to be witnessed when England’s . capital assembles all her beauty and her chivalry, for the English people’s favorite' form of recreation :

“ In the first place be it known and understood that your English dancer [of the polka, even when he ‘ gets the right,’ is but a sorry exponent of the poetry of motion. With his right arm he clutches at his partner at arm’s length anywhere between the belt of her dress and the ton of her shoulder blades, a flat, open palm, with fingers spread like the points of a starfish, being pressed against her spinal column. His left are extended like the jib-boom of a South Goast lugger, his partner’s chief support from it consisting of a tenacious grasp of the ball of his thumb. His head and shoulders by spasmodic movements closely resembling the contortions of a rusty .jointed jumping jack or pendy harlequin, keep imaginary time to tho measure of the dance. He stoops well forward with the pose of a wild bull on the eve of battle fhis knees are bent, and his feet fly upward with the velocity of an inovluntary performer on a a runaway treadmill, coming back to the floor in a series of stiff legged stamps. By some sort of inherent power of propulsion he dashes onward and round at the same time, his partner going with him, seemingly much against her will, if a facial expression of torture be any index of coercive assent. Ton feel as though there ought to be a man with a bell sent on before them to clear the way. Like ocean steamers in a fog off the banks of Newfoundland, the one having the greatest velocity is . the least likely to be injured. Imagine, say, five-and-twenty couples all banging about hither and thither, smashing into each other, throwing each other down, elbowing each other, crushing each other, kicking each othef, jumping on each other, but never attempting to get out of the way of each other, except after a grand crash, and you may form some idea of the polka in an English ballroom.”