Indecency at Coney Island

I dined at the  Chat Blanc. Aleistair Crowley was there with dirty hands, immense rings, presumably dyed hair, a fancy waistcoat, a fur coat, and tennis shoes. Slanlaws was saying that the indecency of the Moulin Rouge etc, ‘wasn’t 30cents’ by the side of Coney Island. I had heard this before. He described the rag-dance, which used to be danced everywhere but was lately forbidden by the police.  Appeared to be a combination of a waltz and the danse du ventre [the ‘belly dance’ or ‘coochee coochee]. He described a number of other Coney Island contrivances for the exhibition of women’s legs and underclothes. 

                                                                                          Journals of Arnold Bennett, March 19th 1905 1905