"A new species of dancing, unknown to the Alberts, the Anatoles, the Brocards, the Hullins, the Pauls, and the Noblets, has come into vogue at the Jardin Mabille, and at the Grande Chaumiere, situated on the Boulevard du Mont Parnasse, not far from the Barriere d'Enfer. This dance is called the _Cancan_ and the _Chahut_. It is unlike the waltz, the gavotte, the country dance, the Scotch reel, the Spanish Cachucha, the Hungarian mazurka; is far worse than jota Arragonese, or the most lascivious of Spanish dances of Andalusia. You may remember that in the early days of Charles X. the police of Paris attempted and succeeded in putting down gross and immodest dances; but under the reign of Louis Philippe the spirit of libertinage and _degingandage_, to use a French term, again broke out among the class of _debardeurs_, and towards the close of 1845 became terrific to behold. You, who know me well, are aware that I am the last person in the world who would seek to put an end to any innocent amusement, or who would contend that the French people should not dance. They have always danced, and will always dance, to the end of time. They danced under Saint Louis, under Henry IV., under Louis XIV., under Napoleon, and why should not they dance now? There is no reason in the world why they should not dance, if in dancing they do not shock public modesty, and offend against public decorum. In the time of Louis XIV. there were public dances at the Moulin de Javelle; in the time of Napoleon there were dances in the Rue Coquenard, and at the Porcherons, near the Rue St. Lazar. In the time of Louis XVIII. and Charles X. there were dances at the Jardin de Tivoli. But at none of these were decency outraged or morality shocked. At Tivoli, the national pastime was indulged with decency and decorum, and although the price on entering was so low as fifteen sous with a ticket, and thirty sous without a ticket, and albeit the dancers were chiefly of the humbler classes, yet, I repeat, in 1827, 1828, and 1829, public decency was not shocked. But from the _bal masque_ of the Theatre des Varietes in 1831, when, towards the close of the evening the lights were put out, and the _ronde infernale_ was commenced, obscene and disgusting dances were becoming more and more common in Paris, and continued to make progress till February, 1848. They had attained the most unenviable notoriety in 1845, when at the Bal Mabille a dance was introduced called "La Reine Pomare." Then there was the "Cancan Eccentrique," introduced by a personage called "La Princesse de Mogador," a feigned name, as you may suppose, assumed by some _fille perdue_. These dances, commenced at the Chaumiere and the Bal Mabille, were also introduced at the Bal Montesquieu, at the Bal de la Cite d'Antin, and, if I mistake not, at the Bal Valentino. The principal performers were students in law, in medicine, in pharmacy, clerks, commis voyageurs, profligate tradesmen,