THE APPEAL OF UGLINESS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1788, 28 June 1913, Page 11

THE APPEAL OF UGLINESS.

BOMB NEW DANCES. Now that the dancing season is in full swing, we are enabled to see for ourselves what these extraordinary dances are like, these "queer capers" about which we have heard so much, and of which the very names reek with vulgarity, so. we need not repeat them here (writes a to tho Sydney "Telegraph"). Besides, there is no need,, because everybody knows them only too well. So far, it is gratifying to note they havo not invaded ourballrooms to any very great extent, and those who are in tho-best position to give an opinion on this interesting subject say that the waltz and the "Boston" will not bo ousted from their leading places on tho programmes. Tho "Boston," to be sure, is a new measure—at least, it is a novelty here —but I remember a gay young Frenchman, Mr. Chas. Heidsieck, who was visiting Sydney about four years ago, telling me all about "Ze Boston," and marvelling why none of our youths and maidens seemed to know this dance, which he declared to be tho absolute craze in European ballrooms. Now, the "Boston" is still the rnge at the other side of the world, as I 'happened to learn by a letter from a Sydney man now in London,. who took the trouble to learn the celebrated" "Boston," so that he mifht not be a wallflower at the winter balls in the gay metropolis. It is an offshoot of the waltz, and when done here most -couples just dance the old deux temps ti' the music. Queer Capers of Dancers But the "Boston" is a decorous measure, and not at all of the same class as some of the others. There was a very explanatory film at one of the picture shows a week or two ago showing Phyllis Dare and George Grossmith in the new dances. Most ridiculous these steps seemed. They appeared to bo very slow. The dancers did not seem in a hurry, and when, the speed of the moving pictures is allowed for—they increase the rate of movement by about 50 per cent—the originals must have been most funereal pacings. There have been several of these dances ,6een on the stage here, and they all emphasise the idea .that, for once, grace and poetry of motion have been set aside in favour of what is eccentric and queer. Oddity and originality carry all before them in dancing as in music and painting;. Some society girls can do these weird dances excellently, and at an afternoon tea lately, where the guests included 6ome theatricals as well as wion-profes-sional people,' two or three of the society girl 9 carried off tho honours, it was considered, at tho impromptu dance which wound up the proceedings. Of course, this «raa quite a small, private party. The 6ame dances in a large ballroom would have been distinctly out of place. Mothers and chaperons are much exercised in mind as to whether they allow their charges,to indulge m theso extraordinary frisks, which turn upside down all our old-notions of what is merely a lively dance of the polka type, expressing extremely high spirits, and what is rather unseemly behaviour.

The Rag Tims Craze. . These new "trotfl" and "hugs" are to 'dancing what rag time is to music. "Do I know rag time?"' is an oft-repeated query just now. But it is not so easy a 9 it 60unds to "know rag time." \ A quite learned article on. the subject appeared not long ago by a leading musical writer, who was fain to confess that he, for one, was puzzled to say just exactly what American rag time 19. To the best of his belief, he declared it to be tlie wedding of an irregular rhythm in the treble and a strongly-marked and regular, rhythm in tho bass. (He. put it much more learnedly than this, but, summed up, his pronouncement amounts to this.) Ho likewise affirmed rag tijpo to be the only American music worth the name, as high-class music written by citizens of the New World is too much' an imitation to be worthjr of a high rank as art; whereas rag time is tho "real thing," and' racy of the soil. It is queer and unusual, and therefore quite fitting to be a product of tho present age, winch loves-not the expected and the usual. It is to jaded nerves and jaded sensations that rag timo appeals. "Alexander's Rag-time Band," when first heard, acts like a tonic. It literally wakes up, to stay awake, the drowsy audience, who find it hard work to keep from nodding after their dinner. The virtue of Tag time is its power to hammer itself upon the brain-pan of its entranced hearer. The street bands have taken up tlif) wondrous tale now,'and wo were all "Waiting for tho Robert E. Lee" and the results of the poll as wo stood looking at the boards on Monday. When the Labour lead in tho Senate was broken by the figures opposite "Gould" gliding into fit-st place, we were heartened still further bv the. lovely strains of "The Gaby Glide." The band brought out all its tunefulness, but still most of us were but confirmed in our former opinion that this air is the ugliest music ever written. It is like a toothache in tho ear to hear it.

The quaint, grotesque in music, as in dancing, holds us all in thrall. Beauty an Obsolete Word. As the freak dance is to the minuet, as rag time is to classical music, so is some of the present-day painting to Teal art. It is all so queer and extraordinary that it fairly has "us beaten to say what we really think of it. Some of these new pictures havo been made familiar to us by reproductions in magazines, etc. 'The Death of the Mole" was one such, and a Sydney woman, who saw the original painting in the Grafton Galleries at the Futurist Exhibition last year, says that the photograph is a great improvement on the original in its comprehensibility. The man s legs look much crookeder in the painting, and tho colour is all flat, as if a child had dono it with a penny brush. Then there was a picture of the dancer Lydia Kyasht, with three faces, and her feet over her head. "The Death of tho Mole" is called a "masterpiece," but it is not called beautiful. , Beauty is a word that the new schools in dancing, painting, and poetry shy at. Ugliness is now a cult. We havo had some new pictures 6hown of late in our city; so we know what they are like. It just seems as if advertisement writinghad changed our ideas on all theso subjects. In advertisements, as you know, the appeal must be made very strong. "Good space-filling" is what the advertiser craves. So the appeal in all these sisterarts must be strong, too, or else the jaded and over-catered-for public cannot get the imnression of them. , Beauty is out of date. Long.live ugliness!

MISS LIND AT THE BAR.

JUDGE'S TRIBUTE. The end' came, at the close of the six- , teenth day, of Miss Lind-af-Hageby s action for alleged libel on the subject of pnti-vivisection against Dr. C. W. Saleeby and tho "Pall 'Mall Gazette," which published his two articles. Tho jury ■ found for the defendants. , Miss Lind is hon. general secretary of the Animal Defence and Anti-Vivisection Society and editor of the "Anti-Vivisec-tion Hievev," states the "Daily Mail. She also controls a shop in Piccadilly used for anti-vivisection propaganda. The ground of her complaint as defined in substance, by Mr. Justice Bucknill in his summing up on Wednesday was that the articles charged her with having untruthfully and dishonestly with her _ associates carried on a campaign against vivisection. Tho simple question for the jury, his lordship also said, shorn of all sentiment, was whether Dr. Sakeby had defamed the character of the plaintiff so as to .-give her the legal right to sue for damages. - t . . , Tjpon the verdict judgment was entered for the defendants, with costs. Miss Lind, a woman of fine presence, now has tho distinction of breaking all "records" for a litigant in person—as well in tho length of time the trial has occupied as in the number of words spoken. Her opening statement to tho jury covered hours; her evidence-in-chief, 9 hours; she wais under oross-examination 81 houT9; for 3} hours more she gave evidence in re-examination; and her closing speech, which concluded-on Wednesday, lasted 3J hours. During these 34 hou/rs Miss Lind spoke over 210,000 words—equal to two 6s. novels; and in addition put more than 20,000 questions to ,her 22 witnesses and the defendants' 12 witnesses.

THE PENGUIN EVENING CLOAK— another freak of fashion. Tho model shows the narrow pointed train, übiquitous as far ag all the coat styles tire concerned, with the lower part carried out in black velvet, and the upper in white cloth trimmed with fur. It might also bo composed of brocade and cloth in contrasting materials.

Estimated on the transcript of the shorthand notes, 700,000 words were 6poken during the healing. • The costs of tho .case will amount to many thousands of pounds. Counsel's fees alone are b?lieved to total at least ,£SOOO. The two K.C.'s for the defendants, in addition to the sums marked on thenbriefs, received "refreshers" daily amounting to .£l5O. 'Miss Lind has cross-examined as well as any counsel at the Bar could have done,' was Mr. Justice Bucknill's testimony. "Her final speech was a very fine one," he added. "She is a woman of marvellous power. Day. after day she showed no sign of fatigue, and did not lose her temper."

DARK CORNERS IN ULSTER,

Belfast and the North of Ireland have been much in the limelight recently, but I there are some dark corners in Ulster which are kept well hidden from the light of publicity, tho dark corners where women are working at the sweated trades.A -recent inquiry into the condition of the Irish home-workers' brought forth some appalling figures. Irish shfrtmakers, for instance, earn from 4s. to 10s. a week, mostly ss. to Bs., collar finishers earn Bs. or 95.; the women who embroider the dainty linen handkerchiefs, for which we pay anything from 2s. apiece, upwards, earn from 4s. to 7s. a week, or, in a few 1 exceptional instances, 10s. to 125.; most of them consider it "brave pay" to earn Is. a day; the drawn-thread workers are shamefully paid, 3s.' a week being a common wage; while a woman who embroidered with exquisite skill a silk parasol received 2s. for it, though it took her three days to do it. And the "day" means anything from early morning to late at night, not a day of eight hours.