The anglicised version of the Cancan was closely associated with that popular song, the last lamentable echoes of which have only recently died away. The origins of “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay” have been discussed with an interest worthier of a more classical literature. The melody has been derived from an old German Volkslied; it has been asserted that it was heard in a Potsdam tea-garden in 1872 and in a Parisian café a hundred years ago, when it was played as the accompaniment to an Algerian _danse du ventre_; it is stated to have been whistled and sung for generations among the rice-fields of the Southern States by negroes whose ancestors had danced to it in the barbaric orgies of Central Africa. Whatever its origin, and the latter derivation is the most probable, it was Lottie Collins who first introduced the tune to European audiences. The words, of course, were entirely rewritten, but their barbaric originals could not have been more idiotic than those which were composed to suit the music-hall sense of humour. The dance which accompanied the song was, however, the great feature of the entertainment. Lottie Collins burst upon London just as a dull theatrical season was drawing to a close, and for several years she held the audiences at the Gaiety and Palace Theatre in the hollow of her hand. The rendering of the Cancan on an English stage was a notable event, but Lottie Collins had the invaluable instinct of knowing how far to go without ever once overstepping the border-line of propriety. In spite of the storms of protest which it raised in certain quarters, her dance was never even in its wildest moments very shocking. The extraordinary jerks of her body, her sudden and startling high kicks, her frantic pirouettes, were more astonishing than indecorous; while the spirit with which they were executed and the utter disregard of the sense of rhythm was a revelation to the English public, which was held spell-bound.