Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1872-05-12
KISSING.
0scuIatOry VagaFfes Taken from Real
and Possible Life.

0scuIatOry Vagaries Taken from Real
and Possible Life.
There is a demand for treatise on kisses
at the next convention of social scientists.
In these days of practical philosophy, even
SO emotional subject must be treated in
cool and rational way. It should be con-
fided to some old gentleman who can look
back on lost opportunities, like remembered
kisses after death" and instruct younger
men how to escape this worst of all regrets
might have been. The treatise might
be illustrated with living Subjects show
ing the amorous kiss, for which q French
woman ought to be imported, while male
volunteers can be found in great numbers;
the kiss platonic, that is best, if not alone,
found in the German practice Of male
friends embracing at every meeting
and every parting; the clerical kiss, which
might be furnished TO perfection by any one
in orders who has just been sued for breach
of promise, or churched for seduction; the
friendly kiss,a common practice among lady
friends just before backbiting one another;
wasted sweetness, when two pairs of ripe
cherry female lips meet in soft commune,
with couple of unenterprising young men
looking on In silence; the smack which an
old maid, greedy from lack Of opportunity,
bestows upon blooming youth Of opposite
sex, and many other bright, tender, delicate,
insinuating, captivating, fascinating, ire
sistible and aggraVating specimens Of Stink
ed sweetness, long drawn out" which no
man is too old to forget, no woman too
homely to long for.
This is duty which the social science
convention owes to the society
which it proposes to regulate
and reform. The Fanny Hyde
trial would furnish q suggestion. One of
the witnesses testified that he saw Watson,
the alleged suducer, kissing Miss Fanny.
When asked what Miss Fanny vas doing
at that time, the witness replied that "she
was letting herself be kissed" Now, the
sociologists ought to follow this up. They
ought to determine whether a woman is
ever doing anything else but 'letting her
self be kissed" when man is kissing her,
and, If so, whether she does it as well as
she would under other circumstances.
The province of the sociologists would go
still further and justify deeper investigation
into the other elements of seduction
whether, in fine, woman is ever seduced
without 'letting herself be seduced."
England has furnished q cotemporane-
Gus instance, showing the necessity for this
scientific investigation. Mistress Ellen
Green, highly respectable woman of Wads-
worth, Eng, has had Master William Keas,
| plasterer in good standing, brought before
the police Justice for kissing .her without
| permission. He came into the kitchen,
took Mistress Ellen by the arms, and
smacked-bussed her then and there. Mis-
tress Ellen set up fearful cutlery, and per-
haps, much to her disappointment, the ope-
ration was summarily cut off by some
neighbors rushing to her assistance. Mas
ter Keas, the plasterer, set UP a defence
| (1.) that Mistress Ellen was foolin' with
him; and (2) that he had kissed her good
many times before, and that she wouldn't
have said any thing about it at this time Il
his fellow-Horkman hadn't come and caught
them at it.
The Police Justice sent Master Keas to
Jail for three months to atone for stealing
such precious fruit as the kisses OF pretty
woman's lips. But the social investigation
should begin where the judicial left of. 1t
might include the following: Whether the
| old motto that astOlen fruit is the sweetest, y
so far as it applies to kisses, is not, like
most other old mottos, delusiOn and g
fraud; whether a stolen kiss, even from d
very pretty woman, is not very dearly paiC
for at three months confinement at HARD
labor; whether dainty cheek or a ruby liz
is any the less sweet for the honey tha
has been snatehed from it; whether it il
among the conceded women's rights to givt
a man good many kisses and then sud
denly bring him before q Police Justice
he happen to take one without her expires
permission; whether Mistress Ellen woul(
have entered her complaint if she hadn'
been caught, etc. All these things are o
the utmost importance and greatest inter
est to a world that is as much given to kiss
ing as 1t is to lying.
Kissing has been a matter of emotion
long enough. 1t is dangerous to leave i
any longer to the rsshness of young mel
who read Byron, and the willingness o
young women who dream. When actresSe
! object, and housewives bring plasterers be
J fore police justices, it is time that socia
science should step in and define the prope
opportunities and privileges. We would al
like to know when we might indulge in
kiss "snatched hasty from sideloDg maid
without being sent up for 80 days; when W
may taste of that blissful immortality whicl
old Marlowe described, by having prett,
woman suck our souls through our lips, an
} watching them fly away; when we mus
content ourselves with Lord Lyttleton'
staid advice to be sober in your diet, to kis
: one and be quiet; when, like Tennysor
] we may suffer our whole souls to be draw
through our lips with one long kiss, Gas sur
light drinketh dew" Pending the decisio
of the sociologists, however, the write
would say that the latter operation is on
that no young man should forego, when
ever pretty woman and good opportu
nifty present themselves. 1t would be sacr
legious-that is, throwing away one Of th
Lords greatest and most manifest bless
ings.