Lola Montes

At the close of the business of the city court, yesterday, Dr. Milton made an application to the bench for a warrant to restrain this celebrated lady from appearing on this and the following evenings for which she is advertised to dance the "spider dance." The Doctor said he begged to call the attention of the Worshipful Bench to a matter which was now agitating the attention of the public. In the name of an outraged community, of prostrated decency, and insulted morality, he had to request that a warrant might be issued to restrain Madame Lola Montes from again perpetrating an outrage against common decency in the Royal Theatre of this city. This offence had not only been committed once, but in defiance of public opinion, it was threatened to be repeated, and Madame Lola Montes, by a letter which appeared with her attachment in the HERALD of that morning, proposed to test public opinion as to the propriety of her conduct. As he held the performance in question to be a decided outrage on common decency, he begged that she might be restrained from again insulting ——. The Mayor asked Dr. Milton if he spoke from personal observation ? Dr. Milton said he did not, but that he was in a position to call witnesses who could substantiate his assertions. The Mayor said the customary course was to make such applications in the magistrates' private room. Dr. Milton said, while he was on the point, he would beg their worships to issue a warrant to prevent a repetition of the outrage referred to. The Mayor said this was rather an out-of-way matter, and directed the Doctor to apply in the private office. Dr. Milton announced his intention to do so. Subsequently Dr. Milton renewed his application in the magistrates' private room, and was assisted by Mr. Hogan, solicitor, who urged upon the magistrate their sacred duty to protect the public morality from such outrages as Dr. Milton had referred to. It was their duty as much or more to prevent the cultivation of a depraved taste among the people of the city as to punish for actual crime, and as his Worship was especially looked up to by the citizens as a conservator of public morality, especially since his prudent prohibition of the exhibition of the " Greek Slave'' in the public shops of the city, he urged it upon him as a religious duty to restrain this infamous pander to a morbid and depraved taste. The magistrate, although disgusted with the dance, and would not take a wife, daughter, or sister to witness it, yet as the law now stood did not think it would justify them in issuing a warrant of arrest against Lola Montes. The best course, however, for the Doctor to pursue would be to visit the theatre in company with competent witnesses, and if they thought the performance immoral they could lay an information supported by the necessary evidence. The Doctor left the magistrates, expressing his intention to visit the theatre in company with four or five respectable persons, and thereupon to lay the necessary information. -AGE.

 26 September 1855, Colonial Times (Hobart,