DANBURY 



1696 



DANCING 



the Admiralty throughout the British navy, 

 and to-day it has a place in the library ( 

 every American man-of-war. 



DANBURY, CONN., a city famous for more 

 th:m u century for the manufacture of men's 

 hats. It is one of two county seats of Fair- 

 field County, Bridgeport being the other, and 

 is situated on both banks of the Still River, 

 in the southwestern part of the state, five 

 miles from the New York state line. New 

 York City is sixty-five miles southwest ; Water- 

 bury is thirty miles northeast. The Danbury 

 & Highland division of the New York, New 

 Haven & Hartford Railway serves the city, 

 and trolley lines operate to Bethel and East 

 Danbury. In 1916 the population was 22,556, 

 an increase of 2,274 since 1910. The area is 

 five square miles. 



The region in which Danbury is located is 

 a picturesque, mountainous country, with good 

 roads, and valleys and lakes for camp- 

 ing and fishing. Lake Kenosia, a 



pleasure resort, is two miles west of the city. 

 Locally, Danbury is called The Hat City. It 

 became known for hat-making in 1780, and in 

 this industry in 1914 it ranked first among the 

 cities of the United States. Important also are 

 the allied silk manufactories and leather and 

 fur factories for making hat accessories. Thirty- 

 six factories altogether are engaged in this busi- 

 ness. Automobile parts, electric novelties, ma- 

 chinery and boxes of all kinds are among the 

 other manufactures of the city. Besides the 

 public schools; there are business colleges, a 

 library with 22,000 volumes (in 1916) and the 

 State Normal School. The Federal building 

 was completed in 1916 at a cost of $120,000; 

 the courthouse, state armory and county jail 

 are structures worthy of note. 



The first settlement was made in 1684, under 

 the Indian name of Pahquioque. It was or- 

 ganized as a town in 1687, was incorporated as 

 a borough in 1822 and received its 

 city charter in 1889. DJ>.L. 



ANCING, dan' sing, a form of exer- 

 cise and recreation, accompanied by music, 

 which, in its highest form, is an expression of 

 the sense of rhythm and the delight in grace- 

 ful movements that are common to human 

 nature. Dancing as it is known to-day has 

 developed from a primitive human instinct, 

 the desire to show emotion by means of action, 

 represented by the war dance of the savage or 

 the dance of rejoicing on the return of the 

 tribe from a successful hunt; but by civilized 

 peoples of modern times it has been enjoyed 

 chiefly as an agreeable pastime or an artistic 

 feature of a public entertainment. 



The grace and rhythm of the dance are par- 

 alleled in nature in the rise and fall of the 

 waves upon the shore, the rippling of the 

 brook, the play of light and shadow, or the 

 tossing of the flowers in the wind. These nat- 

 ural forms of rhythm are an especial delight 



to the poets. In The Brook, Tennyson sings: 



I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance, 



Among my skimming swallows; 



I make the netted sunbeam dance 



Against my sandy shallows. 

 Wordsworth, charmed by the sight of a fielc 

 of golden daffodils, joyfully exclaims: 



Ten thousand saw I at a glance, 

 Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. 



Examples of the poetic expression of the 

 rhythm in nature might be multiplied indef 



nitely. 



Modern Dances. The dances that have 

 joyed popularity since the beginning of t 

 modern period had their origin in the gener 

 awakening of the arts in the fifteenth centui 

 (see RENAISSANCE). 



Catharine de' Medici (1519-1589) made danc 

 ing fashionable in France, and her countryme 

 have always excelled in this artistic form 



