Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 309, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1912 — HAPPENINGS IN THE CITIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HAPPENINGS IN THE CITIES

Show Girls Dance “Bear” and “Tango” in Pulpit

Minneapolis, Minn. — two chorus girls danced a ragtime dance on the platform fk the pulpit of the Rev. G. L. Morrill in Minneapolis the other day, ilusti-ating his sermon on ■“Praise Him With the Dance.” The most amazing and bold dances were ■“put on the boards” by the two girls from a Minneapolis burlesque house and the audience fairly gasped at this. The “Turkey Trot,” the “Crab Crawl,” the “Tortoise Tango,” the “Jolly Wobble,” the “Angle Worm Wriggle,” the “Grizzly” and all others known to these two girls of the stage were danced. Then began the Rev. Mr. Morrill’s •ermon. “Now you have witnessed just how fashionable society carries on when it gets started,” said the Rev. Mr. Morrill. “I admit there is a decent dance, a dance helpful to the body, pleasant

to the mind and harmless to the soul, but these rag dances that you have witnessed, not at all exaggerated, will make the devil blush, and he would hesitate to introduce them into purgatory. ‘There was a time when statues were made of graceful dancers, but today there is a crying demand for statutes against dancing which is disgraceful. The dancing whirlpool of society has drawn into its drowning depths many of the best craft that, ever sailed life’s sea. The dance you have witnessed has degenerated from devotion and diversion into dissipation and debauchery! These rag dances are animal in name and nature and often as much more passionate than the oriental dance as Vesuvius is warmer than an ideberg. ‘We seem almost ready for the naked dance proposed by Plato in his ideal republic. The animal world is libeled Mr. Bear and Mrs. L Turkey were never guilty of such antics and. doubtless look with surprise and shame at the dances which bear their names.” As the two chorus girls performed these “rag” dances, now and then a coin would fly toward the pulpit, while the hlg organ of the church pealed forth rag-time music to aocompany the dance.