THE LADIES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 48, 26 February 1908, Page 4

THE LADIES.

THE INTRODUCTION OF THE . WALTZ.

An historian of social frivolities, writing in the London Chroniolo, enlightens us upon tho introduction of tho waltz into polito society. It soenis that the waltz made its * first appearance at Almackg Club in 1813, although it had been introduced experimentally and unsuccessfully somo twenty years earlier. Almack's at that timo was everything that an exclusive club could be. Membership at Almaok'B was -the giddy summit of the social ladder. There was no higher point to fvhich aspiration oould climb, and that the fences were kept in good repair is sufficiently proved by the fact that its managing committee was formed exclusively of ladies, who kept tirelesa watch and ward against the encroachments of the unworthy. The Almack Club was strong enough to turn away the Duke of Wellington because he approached the sacred precincts wearing trousers instead of knee breeches, and surely courage could not go muoh farther than that. As has Deen said, tho walfcz was nob welcomed when it first appeared in England and it made its exit forthwith. Tho Times of 19th February, 1796, says: — "The balls at Southampton are exceedingly lively and well attended. Tho young ladies are particularly favourable to a German dance called tho vplse; for squeezing, hugging, etc., it is excellent, and more than one lady has fainted in the middle of it," Whether the ladies fainted from emotion or from an excess of "squeezing, hugging, etc" the roport says pot, nor it there any indication of tho terrible doings suggested by the eloquerit "etc," which, perhaps, are besb left veiled; but the waltz disappeared_ for the time, • perhaps that the ladiea might have leisure to get mor^ robust. In 1813 we find ifc at Almaok's, and with suoh a sponsor it had come ty'stay. Upon its first appearance there' it was danced by Mme. de Lieven and Lord Palmerston, and Princess Esterhazy and Baron ds Neumann, and in spite of the august protection of Almaok's it divided society into two camps, those who were charmed by opportunities not previously available and those who resented it as an unwarranted breach of decorum. ' v