From the Portland Oregonian - August 6, 1869.
Philadelphia Ladies Admire the Cancan
At Oakland, the ladies and gentlemen passed an hour or two the other evening discussing the cancan, as to its morality or immorality. The debate was lively and interesting. We give a short synopsis from the letter of a correspondent.
Exactly what started the conversation in the direction of the cancan I don’t remember. Perhaps it was the waltz which the three fiddlers were playing in the ballroom, the faint sounds of which came drifting into the parlor. Perhaps it was the result of a desire on the part of a bold young New Yorker, who had been to France, to say something he ought not and to astonish the ladies. If such was his nefarious purpose, he signally failed; for the ladies, who somewhere had seen Morlacchi and Leah, and Baretta and Alexandrina—in fact, I think all of those creatures that made up what used to be so finely called “the grand Parisian ballet troupe”—were not disposed to let any man pass them in professions of admiration.
“Why, they are delicious,” said a lady from Cincinnati. “I have never seen anything in my life so charming and so graceful as those three movements. And I didn’t see any harm in them, either.”
Then spoke up a lady from Philadelphia—”No, nor I, and I don’t believe there is any. It is all talk,” and I believe the charming woman said that it was also, “bosh.”
A lady from Washington said, “Will, I went to see Morlacchi and Leah, and I looked just as carefully as I could look to see something that was improper (shameless avowal,) and I didn’t see one single thing. I think that the dance is as sweet as it is pretty, and as darling a little fragment as any that nymphs of the woods were wont to dance in the days of ancient Greece, or Pompeiian beauties in the luxurious days of the Roman Empire.” It was quite evident that lady was from Washington. She must have often listened to the divine Mullins.
The fair Cincinnatian came once more to the charge. “Now, I believe I know enough to know when a dance is improper. To me, the cancan is full of all grace and refinement and bewitching charms. And I believe it is the fault of those horrid newspapers that have said so much about it. And the newspapers are no better than they ought to be.” She shot a glimpse at me which made cold shivers run down my back, and myself to feel as if I was deserving of a hangman’s knot.
The whole chorus of sweet voices rang in, in harmonious accent: “So do I! So do I!”
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