MARATHON

In a smelly smoky grimy little auditorium at Revere last Saturday night were gathered several hundred of Greater Boston's good citizens. High on the wall above them hung a large sign: "Ladies and Gentlemen: This is a place of refined Amusement. Whistling, Stomping of Feet, Drunkenness, Catcalls, and other Noises strictly prohibited". The audience whistled, stomped its feet, screamed, one doughty matron rang a cowbell. It was witnessing a great climax, the end of a Dance Marathon.

Before the audience there shuffied in two-four time five weary children of Eve, two women, three men. They did not dance; dancing is an expression of happiness. They slouched, two pairs walking slowly side by side, chained together at the wrists, the odd man lurching along alone, around and around the small roped-off circle before the spectators. Around and around they went, slowly, slowly, sometimes to raucous noise from a jazz orchestra, sometimes only to an inner rhythm of their own, around and around, slowly, slowly. The members of the audience kept close watch on those five faces, haggard with six months fatigue, indisputably young but drawn and lined beyond the power of rice powder and rouge to conceal; the audience watched the faces for signs that would show the near collapse of one or another of the youths. If the audience tired of watching it was amused by seeing two buffoons push one another over, spit at one another, make lewd jokes, or it could eat popcorn and ice-cream. The contestants shuffled on, around and around.

As a form of refined amusement for civilized people the dance marathon may leave nothing to be desired. To each nation its taste: in Moscow the public ballet, in Vienna the state supported opera, in Berlin the municipal drama, in New England the profitable marathon. In New England the profitable marathon, whose five contestants will, if science tolls true, never replace the nerve tissue destroyed by excessive fatigue. In New England an audience which pays to watch youths shufile slowly around a circle for six months, till vivacity and health and stamina are worn completely away.