DANCING MARATHONS.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15272, 23 June 1923, Page 8

DANCING MARATHONS.

SEVERAL GO TO HOSPITALS. One lusty, deep-chested marine locked in an embrace with a former cavalryman, held the floor at a dance hall in North-west Washington tonight (says a New York paper of April 24), while down town at another hall two men and one woman, equally ’hardy, trod the floor with flagging steps—sole survivors of" the 37 persons who started out on Wednesday night to break all endurance dancing records. Meanwhile, half-a-dozen victims of the craze, who at various periods had dropped out of the gruelling contests from exhaustion, were in hospitals or under the care of physicians at Iheir homes, and city authorities were seeking means lo prevent such exhibitions in the national capital in the future. Since the beginning of the exhibitions thousands of persons have paid admission to the halls to watch the dancers, whose efforts, physicians said, were the most exhausting, botli to nerves and body tissues, ever experienced in a trial of human strength. A few prizes, some of 50 dollars, have been distributed among those who fall to the floor after sleepless days and nights of motion. Others have had their pains for their efforts, and one or two young women have lost their jobs. The marine and the cavalryman commanded the greatest interest. The leatherneck, declared to be a marvel of physical development, is Aubrey Gilbert, of Glarksdaie, and he faces charges of “absence without leave” unless he “brings h.ome the bacon." His antagonist, Josef Bolstrosky, has announced that he wijll see the finish. Moving vans were engagejl for midnight to transfer the survivors to Virginia or Maryland, because of a District of Columbia ordinance forbidding such exhibitions on Sunday.

During the' day Elsie Weber, who set a 53-hour record in Baltimore, dropped to the floor, striking her head. She was attended by a physician, but returned to the contest within a few minutes.