The Dance House- These dens of iniquity and sinks of vice and immorality are still well patronized, and remain, as heretofore, under the powerful protection of our immaculate Police authorities, who seem to derive an intense satisfaction—if not a secret revenue—from assisting the miners to enjoy themselves at the “places of recreation” which were opened “expressly for their benefit and at their request.”  After all that has been said in the papers against these worse than bawdy houses and the moral lepers who infest them, we almost despair of doing any good by referring to them again.  The Police Magistrate has been called upon by the papers to do his duty and close them up—an elaborately worded and numerously signed petition to the same end, from respectable citizens—many of them heads of families whose senses are shocked by the nightly scene of outrage and immorality enacted in the neighbourhood of their dwellings—has been sent him, and the unanimous and expressed opinion of nearly ever decent man in the community is against their continuance.  All this Mr. Pemberton knows, and yet he refuses or neglects to do his duty in the premises.  We wherefore conclude that as he has turned a deaf ear to every remonstrance which has been brought to bear against the dance houses, it is useless (?) longer to appeal to that quarter for relief.  The only remedy we can suggest—Heaven forbid that we should wish to see it carried out!—is for some enterprising citizen—having at heart the moral good of Victoria and the final suppression of these “dens”—to start a squaw dance house at a point as near as possible to the residence of some one or more of the officials, who will then have an excellent opportunity afforded them to obtain an insight into the disgusting scenes and annoyances which have now to be endured by many respectable citizens whose peace is available to them as it can possible be to the highest officer of the Crown in the land, and the moral training of whose offspring is just as essential to their happiness as if they were the children of Queen Victoria.  We venture a small wager, if a dance house were opened on the southern shore of James Bay, near the Governor’s farm, that a general onslaught would at once be made by the Police upon all such institutions, within or without the town limits, and that within twenty-four hours after the dulcet strains of a fiddle had called the dancers to their feet for the first cotillion at the new “den,” not one of the dusky damsels who new delight to do honour to the memory of the Muse of dance and song, would even be permitted to enter the town.

Back