Dancing On Sunday Under Umbrellas

There is a curious survival (a correspondent writes to us from Foix) of ancient customs in the capital of the Ariege - the local f ote which takes place in the month of October. preserving many of the features which characterized it during the Middle Ages. The whole of the town takes part in it, and dancing in the open air begins at one in the afternoon, and. with an interval of a couple of hours for dinner, lasta till daybreak the next morning. The spacious promenade of the town, at the foot of the ruins of the chateau of Gaston PhfEbus, is transforraeil into a ballroom and magnitieently illuminated, and upon the erainence above it is a military band, generally brought from Toulouse. The dancers are divided into three separate groups; to the right the grisettes, in the center the peasants and to the left the ladies; the characteristic part of the fete being that all classes of the community are expected to take part in it, and that the wife and dauo-hter of the prefect would incur mucli unpopularity if they declined to dance. These fetes are never disturbed by any disortterly conduct, and not in the memory of the traditional "oldest nhabitant" has any misnndei standing been known to arise. Every now and then a thun der-storm bursts over the town; but unless the rain is very heavy the dancing is not interrupted, and it is amusing to see a quadrille or a waltz being gone through under the protection of a forest of umbrellas. The fete ljvsts over two Sundays, and attracts crowds of people from the monntainous distriets of Ariege and from the