IS DANCING TOO POPULAR?

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 3, Issue 5, 1 November 1924, Page 48

IS DANCING TOO POPULAR?

EUSTACE POUNTNEY

JF you take up any of the numerous novels which deal with the period of the war, you will generally find in one of the earlier chapters an attempted sketch of the world immediately preceding the outbreak; and these sketches have at least one factor in common. They show a world “tottering on the brink,” “lost in a whirl of feverish gaiety,” and “dancing mad.” In the same way, if you glance at a novel of the post-war period, you wall often find a not dissimilar picture. The world, it would seem, is still tottering on the brink, lost in a new whirl of feverish gaiety, above all, dancing-mad. But is this true? I frequently hear people deplore the enormous amount of youthful energy which is wasted on dancing. . Serious letters are written to the newspapers on the question. Young men, you read, who should be working or indulging in out-of-door sports, are to be found in fashionable restaurants, not only for half the night, which is bad enough, but actually in the afternoon, which is monstrous. Idle Rumours Girls in society are supposed to spend their butterfly existence either dancing or ordering dancing frocks. It is hinted darkly that night clubs and dancing halls are necessarily places of ill-repute, where, if drugs are not actually sold over a counter, they are to be obtained without very much trouble. According to these people, our youngsters are not only dancingmad, but degenerate. Such pictures, however, to my mind, are absurdly exaggerated, if not actually untrue. Dancing has always been popular, and why it should be considered a sign of degeneracy that young folk prefer, as so many of them do, to dance in the afternoon rather than in the small hours of the morning, passes my comprehension. And it is absurd to say, as some people do, that athletics are suffering in consequence of the new “craze.” It is certainly true that greater numbers of people are dancing to-day than ever before, but why should they not? England has always encouraged dancing, from the days when a maypole was erected periodically on the village green.