The Presbyterian synod at Erie, Pa., has turned a lawyer named Donaldson out of the church. The charge against him was not that he was a lawyer, as might be supposed, but that he had danced a quadrille. It does not seem to us as though there could be anything more harmless than dancing a cold blooded quadrille. It is a simple walk around, and is not even exercise. Of course a man can, if he chooses, get in extra steps enough to keep his feet warm, but we contend that no quadrille, where they only touch hands, go down in the middle, and alamand left, can work upon a man’s religion enough to cause him to backslide.
If it was this new “waltz quadrille” that Donaldson indulged in, where there is intermittant hugging, and where the head gets to whirling, and a man has to hang on to his partner quite considerable, to keep from falling all over himself, and where she looks up fondly into his eyes and as though telling him to squeeze just as hard as it seemed necessary for his convenience, we should not wonder so much at the synod hauling him over the coals for cruelty to himself, but a cold quadrille has no deviltry in it.
We presume the wicked and perverse Dr. Donaldson will join another church that allows dancing judiciously administered, and may yet get to heaven ahead of the Presbyterian synod, and he may be elected to some high position there, as Arthur was here, after the synod of Hayes and Sherman had bounced him from the Custom House for dancing the great spoils walk around.
It is often the case here, and we do not know why it may not be in heaven, that the ones that are turned over and shook up, and the dust knocked out of them, and their metaphorical coat tail filled with boots, find that the whirligig of time has placed them above the parties who smote them, and we can readily believe that if Donaldson gets a first-class position of power, above the skies, he will make it decidedly warm for his persecutors when they come up to the desk with their gripsacks and register and ask for a room and a bath, and a fire escape. He will be apt to look up to the key rack and tell them everything is full, but they can find pretty fair accommodations at the other house, down at the Hot Springs, on the European plan, by Mr. Devil, formerly of Chicago.
[FROZEN EARS.]
“A young fellow and his girl went out sleighing yesterday, and the lad returned with a frozen ear. There is nothing very startling in the simple fact of a frozen ear, but the idea is that it was the ear next to the girl that he was foolish enough to let freeze.” A girl that will go out sleigh-riding with a young man and allow his ears to freeze is no gentleman, and ought to be arrested. Why, here in Milwaukee, on the coldest days, we have seen a young man out riding with a girl, and his ears were so hot they would fairly “sis,” and there was not a man driving on the avenue but would have changed places with the young man, and allowed his ears to cool. Girls cannot sit too close during this weather. The climate is rigorous.
[HARD ON FOND DU LAC.]
Forest street, Fond du Lac, is going to be a great place for sparking, one of these days. For three years all the children born on that street have been girls. Some lay it to the artesian well water.