Let us turn our attention from these regions of idolatry, and inquire among what nations of Christendom this amusement is most popular, that we may trace it throughout its various existing associations. At the head of what are usually denominated civilized countries, we must place France, Italy and Spain, where on the Sabbath it is deemed entirely consistent with the claims of Christianity to go to the house of God in the morning, and to a bull-fight and a dance in the public gardens in the afternoon. And it might be an instructive commentary as to the evil effects of this amusement on the morals of those nations, to go more into particulars, were it not that the facts concerning the virtue, purity and chastity of the fashionable circles of France and Italy, disclosed by travellers, are too appalling to be repeated. In England the chief patrons of the dance are their card-playing, theatre-going, and horse-racing aristocracy; who are indebted to their purse and to their title for their standing in society; who are too indolent generally to cultivate their minds; and who are seldom capable of gaining distinction, except by extravagance and debauchery. In these _higher_ circles no man is deemed respectable who cannot "trip it on the light fantastic toe." And that person is scouted as a mawkish prude or a hypocritical fanatic, who scruples to go the whole round of these _elegant_ amusements. Says a writer of this class: "He must be a desperate gnat-strainer who gives and goes to dances and yet objects to cards. The strictest Pharisee in the land, indeed, _could find no argument against it_." This is a modest assumption which we have no time to notice. In commenting on this quotation, it is sufficient for our present purpose to remark that the opinions and practices of the fashionable world, compel us to class these recreations in the same category. Let us now look at the _introduction_ of this fashionable amusement into the United States. It comes from the gay saloons of Paris and of London, and it is an imitation of the corrupt and ruinous fashions of the old world. It is the entering wedge of luxury and licentiousness, the fatal antagonists to the purity and simplicity of our republican institutions and manners.