[Footnote 8: The bread should not be eaten till it is _cured_, or stale; i.e., at least twenty-four hours old; and it is _good_, for several days more. The superior wholesomeness of _cured_ bread is explained by the fact, that on coming out of the oven, it has an over-proportion of carbonic acid gas--well known to be poisonous when unmixed; but by lying in the open air, the bread parts with most of this noxious gas, and imbibes instead of it, oxygen gas--the wholesome, vital _principle_ in the atmosphere.] For the Southern Literary Messenger. THE WALTZ AND THE GALLOPADE. MR. WHITE,--Although a short time only has passed since I wrote you a long letter, partly to fulfil a promise made before your Messenger began to perform his most welcome peregrinations, yet the spirit moveth me irresistibly to address you again. The immediate cause of this second tax upon your patience being so soon levied, is the perusal of an article published some time ago in that spirited paper, the "Constitutional Whig" of your city,--wherein, to my great gratification, its talented editor has lashed in well merited style, that outrage upon the yet unsophisticated manners and customs of our country, seen, I believe, for the first time in the city of Washington last winter, as if in mockery of the character and memory of its illustrious founder. I mean the "Fancy Ball," as it is styled by those who have undertaken to describe it; although with all due deference to their superior taste and knowledge, I would venture to suggest "the frantic hurlyburly" as a more appropriate term. I do this from having some reason to believe, that a more deplorable caricature of what was designed to be represented, was never perpetrated by the would-be fashionables in any country--either _in_ or _out_ of Christendom. This foreign and apish intruder has not yet, thank heaven, gained such footing among us, as altogether to preclude the hope of extirpating it from the land, if a few such pens as that wielded by the editor of the Whig, could be exerted for so laudable a purpose; and therefore it is that I venture to cry--"to the rescue," in the hope that several others will obey the call. Let it once be deemed "_the fashion_" to have "Fancy Balls," and even the greatest clodhoppers among us are sufficiently acquainted with the despotism of this tyrant, to know that _his_ behests will bid defiance alike to reason, ridicule, and reproof--to good sense, good manners, and good principles.