The Shady Side of Nottingham

THE SHADY SIDE OF NOTTINGHAM

No.IV

A BALL AT A "WORKING MAN'S CLUB"

(BY AN OCCASIONAL CORRESPONDENT)

"The harp, the viol, the timbrel, the lute, and the pipe," as Canon Morse would put it, arrested my homeward steps one early morning less than a month ago. The music was more muscular than harmonious, but it appeared to answer the purpose and was ever and anon loudly penetrated by laughter of that semi-insane order which has been so well described as "the crackling of thorns beneath a pot". How shall I get through that low-browed door into that tall ramshackle building, whence break out those sounds of revelry by night? "Faint heart never won fair lady," nor ever stormed Redan, so here goes

    "Rat-tat-tat." In a moment the door is opened the length of the chain and a pair of piercing eyes under shaggy eyebrows discriminatingly scrutinise my face et tout ensemble. Their decision evidently is that I look sufficiently rowdyish to gain admission, for the chain is undone and I pass quickly through the gloomy portal into a primitive scullery. Whew! The atmosphere beats the "forty well-defined and separate stinks" which Coleridge diagnosed at Cologne. A "nip" of well-watered gin is not only necessary to establish my footing, but to give a passable stability to my stomach and happily it is accessible.

    Herrings in a barrel, sardines in a tin, oranges in an "original package" - only by such illustration can I describe the crowded condition of the first room I overlooked. But the customers of the house - pardonne! the members of the club - are here, many of them good, decent fellows whom I have no met before, and it is not them I am after on this occasion. What a horrible den lies to the right! It seethes with smoke, it reeks with perspiration, it is redolent of drunken breath; and, worst of all, the room is the receptacle of the very old, the very young, or the undanceable middle-aged, who would rather drink, swear and manipulate the "flats" than convert themselves into "teetotums".

    The mystery to me is, that when mature people are anxious to "go the whole hog" they do not leave the children at home. Will the children of this generation not learn cards and cursing soon enough, unless the good God or His ministers interfere, without being deliberately conducted by their parents into the pandemonium of those pernicious pastimes? Let me draw the veil closely on the scene where parents were dissipating before the discerning eyes of their children of both sexes.

     Turn we to the left. It is step nearer the facilis descensus Averni. They are mostly young men, intellectually dissipating in strong tobacco and coarse chaff, while not neglecting to replenish their beer cans and keep a keen eye on the few young women who have ventured into the unhallowed precincts. Ordinary language will not adequately enable my readers to realise this scene. Two young girls at least, I should say, are unaccustomed to it. They are pestered by rude attentions, and ruder invitations to liquid indulgence. For a while they laugh, and for once they drink. Then a Bacchanal more forward than the rest, whispers to one of them a sentence. She blushes like a peony, bursts into tears, passionately exclaims, "I am not one of those;" until the reproof of the "manager" of the Club, that he does not keep apartments for crying in, stilled the indignation of innocence. When I saw the girl I could not help asking myself:- 

    Who was her father, who was her mother,

    Had she a sister, had she a brother?

Why was it permitted that she should be dragged by a female companion, a little more indoctrinated in the ways of a ball at a "Working Man's Club" than herself, into the very jaws of moral death? There is much more that is noticeable on the way to the ball-room, which I cannot pause to describe. At the receipt of custom sits a puffy-faced red-shawled woman who gathers in the sixpences galore from her masculine patrons. She is not connected with the "Club". The ball is her venture. Very good, but by what licence is the drink sold which circulates between the dances? I only ask our authorities the question and do not venture, after recent official threats, to propound the solution of it. Ah, here at last is the band of music, which wooed me from the street; it is not altogether after Canon Morse's Hebraic model, but quite serviceable, nevertheless. The musicians are sober and amused. On the top of the grand piano, however, a reveller is stretched out at full length, bibulously imagining himself in the seventh heaven of happiness, until perhaps his head in the morning may remind him that one who would drink with the gods must be a god himself, and not a very mediocre moral. What do I see? Twenty or thirty couples engaged in a waltz. Who could look at the scene without a shuddering of disgust? The young women are tolerably well dressed. Some of them are very young, and in other scenes and with other expression on their faces would be exceedingly attractive. Others are not old in age, but very old in appearance with their attenuated figures, hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. The latter are the veterans of these illicit "hops". Alas, that they should show the uninitiated or partially initiated such an evil example of ribald jest and abandoned gesture; and still worse, alas, that the former should show such aptitude in aping that dissolute example of their more experienced companions. 

    What I saw in a so-called Nottingham "Working-man's Club" would never have been permitted at Cremorne or in the Argyll Rooms. The young men, who by their clothes might have been the sweepings of the factories, were as vulgar as they were slovenly. The emblem of refinement was to smoke a cigar during the dance, and to watch the curling smoke delineating in the air the terpsichorean figures cut upon the floor. But it was perhaps a more difficult fear, according to the general custom, to deftly balance a long clay pipe between the teeth, and fiercely fumigate into your partner's face, who quietly shuts her eyes and refuses to open them except in the event of a serious collision. By the young men keeping their hats on, I presume that they considered them only safe from the kleptomaniac while they reposed on their heads. I have not seen the same amount of hugging, nor the particular attitude in which, for innumerable rounds, a pair of waltzers rested their right cheeks against each other, since I spent a soul-harrowing Sunday night of enquiry in the lowest quarter of Altona. Then when the musicians crashed their finale, it was the correct thing for the young men to swing themselves to a chair or a form, or perchance a table, and roughly hoisted their dizzy partners on their knees. When more air was wanted an adjournment was made to the staircase, where couples sat or reclined in the most negligé style, cracking rough jokes and exchanging coarse caressses, when they had recovered breath enough for such lewd bye-play. Then - and I might be allowed to ask if that was the contemplated sphere of "clubs"? - they intensified their thirst by stupefying their senses with beer or maddening them with fiery spirits, until the band again summoned them to what proved to be no longer the light fantastic, but the besotted and stumbling toe. The bleared eyes, the blaring faces, the reeling forms, the lascivious language of young men and young women, consequent upon the orgy, are beyond description or recapitulation, and I must drop the curtain on the awful possibilities of the sequel. Will social reformers pardon me if I ask them this question: What is the use of passionately fighting against the comparatively mild dissipation which you see on the surface of the "Shady Side of Nottingham" until you attack and demolish the secret places where drunkards and prostitutes have been, and are now being manufactured wholesale?

Nottinghamshire Guardian, 26 January 1877

Strict Ballroom

Sometimes, when you are asked to dinner, your host and hostess will conduct you with them to a ball, your conduct on this occasion, therefore, will form our next subject of comment. The proprieties of ball-room etiquette are very nice and should be carefully studied by those who wish to keep on good terms with that sex which forms the great charm and ornament of all society. Dancing is an accomplishment which, though generally assiduously cultivated by the female sex, is too often neglected or disregarded as a necessary branch of a gentleman's education.In our great public schools no provision is made for it in the academical course; and the boy of good family who is sent to them must learn the art, if he learn it at all, by fits and starts, during his holidays, and, as is very often the case, he will dislike to do so even then, for fear of being laughed at by his schoolfellows for cultivating so effeminate an accomplishment. Nature has made every Frenchman and Frenchwoman agile, and has implanted in all classes as love - almost a passion - for dancing; and if Art were called in to enforce universally on our countrymen the elegancies and proprieties of this delightful exercise, she might, without injury to our more manly virtues, make us "a nation of dancers" as well musicians. Many object to dancing because it has been abused to bad purposes, but is has been abused only in company with many other good things; and if late hours, bad associations, and habits of excitement - often ending in a languor as mischievous as dangerous - are the common results of this exercise, these surely are not inseparable from dancing; and the best way to counteract these results is to provide proper hours, proper places, and proper rules and regulations for its enjoyment.

On entering a ball-room and especially when the company is large, you will perceive several individuals who officiate as 'masters of ceremonies', or stewards for the occasion. We are here, of course, speaking of a public ball-room, for, at a private party, the host and hostess will introduce parties to each other. The duty of the steward is to see that everything is conducted with order and propriety in a way conducive to the enjoyment of the company, and to procure partners for any strangers that may be present. If a stranger see a young lady in the room, apparently disengaged, with whom he desires to dance, the steward will present him to her, unless there be a material difference of rank between the two parties. But a stranger must, on no account, go up to a lady in a public room and ask her to dance with him, as that is considered to be presumption. A ball-room acquaintance does not constitute an acquaintance out of the ball-room, and, therefore, you must not consider that you have a right to address your partner of the night before, should you happen to see her elsewhere. If you find her conversation agreeable, and she appears to find your conversation to her taste, she will give the first sign of recognition herself, on the next occasion of meeting. Do not appear in a ball-room with black gloves on. It is said to be a sign that the person wearing them does not intend to dance, but this is an innovation. White gloves are always the etiquette of a ball-room; and you must be careful not to dance without gloves, as this is considered offensive to a lady. Lead your partner in the dance; do not drag her, or take hold of her hand too tightly.

It may not be considered a disgrace not to be able to dance, as we are not obliged to learn that accomplishment unless we please; but it is quite evident that it is better for those who do not dance to stay away from a public ball-room. But, if anyone in the ball-room ask you, with a kind of sneer: "Don't you dance?" there is no occasion for feeling ashamed to reply in the negative.

A ball-room dress should be as light, and as little cumbersome, as possible - such as, in fact, is most desirable for the purposes of quick movement. Gentlemen should wear black trousers; white waistcoat, or an embroidered black one; black dress coat; black or white neck-cloth; dress boots or pumps; and black silk stockings, with light-coloured gloves. Ladies should have their hair neatly and prettily done, and should not wear flowers and bows of a mixed colour. Dingy white should be avoided in shoes, and other things, and cleaned gloves should never be worn. The top of the ball-room is at the same end as the orchestra, when that is at the end. When the music is in the middle the top is farthest from the door.

If a lady be taken by a gentleman to a ball, he leads her to a seat. While dancing with her, he will pay her exclusive attention, and at the close of a dance will invite her to take refreshments. After leading the lady to her seat, he will leave her with a bow, or, if she think proper, will converse with her for a little time before leaving her. He may claim her hand for one of the subsequent dances, and then he will seek another partner for the ensuing dance.

Usually, both at public and private balls, the dancing is adjourned between twelve and one o'clock to allow time for the supper. To this necessary refreshment, each gentleman must escort his partner in the last dance, or if she has been already engaged for that purpose, he should then offer his services to any lady who may have accompanied him. Should he be alone in the ball-room, it would be polite in him to offer his arm to any lady in the room who is without a companion, and it would be very proper, during the dancing, to engage with a lady for a partner. The gentleman must wait up on the lady whom he has escorted to the supper-table, and not venture to take any refreshment himself until all her wants have been attended to. The gentlemen of the company, in most cases, prefer to stand and wait upon the gentler sex, and when their fair partners have retired (it being considered good manners to do so as soon as the demands of the appetite are satisfied), to sit down to this refection together.

When the ball is approaching its termination, or when the ladies of a party appear desirous to leave the festive scene, the gentlemen who have danced with them will consider it their privilege to call their carriage, and escort them to it; but the gentlemen must be careful not to volunteer their services in escorting their partners home, as that is considered an impropriety. If they have engaged in an animated and agreeable conversation, it may no be out of place, on leaving, to express a respectful hope that the acquaintance may be further cultivated; but this should be only ventured upon in a case where little doubt is entertained of the propriety and acceptability of the offer.

These rules are applicable to private as well as to public balls.

With regard to the dancing itself, we may make a few remarks on the most popular dances, and the etiquette required in engaging in them. The Quadrille may be considered old fashioned by certain young persons, but it will always retain its place in our assemblies as the most pleasant and entertaining dance, and therefore, we give it the first place. It is very easy to learn this dance, for it requires little agility and skill; indeed, little beyond actual walking through the steps is required. If possible, a gentleman will escort his partner to the "top" place; should that be occupied, he will secure the next in position. There were originally six figures in the Quadrille; but, of these, only five are danced now - "Paine's first set," two sets of "Lancers," the "Caledonians," and the "Parisian."

The "Schottische" is the favourite dance of the German peasants, and is a kind of mixture of the waltz and the polka. Some people dance it advancing and retiring, but it is more convenient to dance it to the right and left. In this dance the gentleman will exercise caution in taking hold of his partner's waist; and avoid pressing it, except in the lightest manner, as any such dereliction of good manners may entail angry looks on the part of the lady, and, probably, result in a disinclination on her part, to accept the hand of the offender in future. This caution will apply to the "Waltz" and the "Polka" equally with the "Schottische."

The "Waltz" (which it may be observed, should be pronounced "valtz") is of various kinds; there are the common waltz, the waltz a deux temps, the waltz called the "Redows", and the waltz "Cellarius". Of these, the second is the most fashionable.

The "Polka" is a foreign novelty, and its popularity is almost unprecedented. From its nature, great decorum and propriety are necessary in dancing it; that the lady should lean too heavily on the gentleman, or that the latter should press too closely on his partner, is considered a violation of good manners, which is not tolerated either in private circles or in public assemblies of reputation.

These are the chief dances in vogue. We may here remark that, although it is necessary in a public room to abstain from forcing an acquaintance on anyone, yet acquaintances are made in ball-rooms which, carefully prosecuted, ripen into friendships and not unfrequently terminate in a still dearer connection. Good temper is an essential element of ball-room success. Do not unnecessarily allow any little annoyance resulting from another couple coming into collision with you in the dance, or from your partner being found engaged to another after she has declined the offer of your hand - to irritate you, or to deprive you of the polite calmness which good-breeding requires. Avoid these indications of ill-temper, be polite to your partner, gentlemanly and obliging to all the company with whom you may happen to converse, and your society will be considered acceptable. If these are the necessary formalities of a gentleman's conduct in a ball-room, they may, with a few alterations, comprise those of a lady's on the same occasion. A lady has a perfect right to exercise her own choice in accepting or declining the offer of a gentleman for her hand in a dance and no man of sense would consider a refusal in the light of a personal objection, or resent it as a personal insult. It is only necessary that politeness and proper consideration should be shown in the manner of the lady declining the offer; of course, she should never, either from a motive of vanity, or from a change of temper, or a whim, accept another partner after such a refusal. A lady should always adopt this simple rule of good-breeding when she refuses to dance. In the ball-room, she should be neatly but not gaudily dressed, graceful and gentle, and, at the same time, cautious not to overstep the bounds of propriety and modesty, and she may rely upon it that she will never want a partner in the dance, or continue without  the companionship of a gentleman through the joyous whirl of life.

'The Science of Etiquette, Deportment and Dress', in The London Journal, 16 May 1857