National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1874-05-23
Iatianal &epnblifau.
MISSING
hIOoIn "
rFrom Chamhers' Journal


Awhile he stood, expecting
Their universal shout and high applause
10 NIL his ear: when, contrary he hears
On all sides, from innumerable tongues
dismal universal hiss, the sound
or public sc0rn. f... d..
An assembly Of churchmen ought, no doubt
to be the exact reverse of an assembly o.
demons. Thstthereis, however, some exPeota
ton Of a certain amount of Kissing in ecciesiss
ticsl gatherings may be 'uferred from the pre-
csutionary charge with which Archbishop
Trench opened the Dublin Church Congress in
1858. ''Hissing," remarked that scholarly
prelate, sis not human utterancei It Is ob,ec
tionable, because it net only expresses dissent
from the speech, but dislike to the speaker"
He begged the members of the Congress t.
say "No, no P' with all the feryor they coulC
command, and not to hiss, whenever they fell
compelled to give an audible expression te
their dissent. The poet who attributes tn,
first hiss to the devils, has said that thew pres
byter is but old priest writ large" During
the sitting Of the Scottish Free Church Assem-
bly, in June, 1873, some Of the members In
dulged themselves SO freely In kissing the
speeches Of those with whom they disagreed
that DR., Duff, the moderator, told them they
reminded him Of Milton's kissing devils. The
parallel was not exact, for Milteu's devils werf
those gentlemen Kissed, no doubt, out Of hearty
free will. .Et e. .
There has been some controversy as to the
most ancient method of manifesting disap-
proyal in public assemblies. Distinction must
however be made between organized state
assemblies and assemblies fortuitously gath.
cred, such as mobs or theatre assemblies. In
the former, kissing has undoubtedly always
been considered as more or less of disorder;
haa haa iza6 ha al ~
legitimate way of showing disagreement.
Cicero often alludes to kissing (sibiIlS) as the
form OF salutation with which the Roman pop
ulace greeted those whom they disliked in the
places of public concourSe; they poured 1t
forth equally upon the politicians and the en-
tertsiners who had lost their favor. Celius,
IN one of his letters to Cicero, included among
the "Epistles" of the latter, after speaking Of
the Missing of the vulgar, goes on TO say that
1t is remarkable that Hortensius reached his
great age without once mourning the shame of
being Kissed; or, as it stands literally in the
Latin, "Hortensus arrived at old age un
touched by q hiss" Cicero asserts that the
actor was Kissed off (czSi6iLGtaT) by the keenly
critical populsce if he pronounced verse one
syllable too long or too short.
Our English actors have an easy and indul-
gent audience in the galleries of our theatres;
but if the English language is ever taught to
English children Of the poorer classes in the
national schools, Gas German is taught among
the dislect-speaking German races, the goods"
will perhaps become more intolerant. 1t seems,
from passage in Tacitus, that mercenary hisses
could be hired for the purpose of theatrical
disspproval by playwright envious Of a rivals
success, or CALLED at his own failures. Unpop-
ular characters seem to HAYS been Kissed wher-
ever they showed themselves. Cicero demands
taun:ingly of one of his antagonists, "Why
dost thou not show myself to the people at the
games. Fearest thou to be hissedl" The miser
in Horace's Satires consoles himself, that al
though the people hiss him out of doors, he
appIauds himself at home.
Kissing comes so easily to the natural man
when he wants to express dissent, that it must
certainly have tried to legitimatize itself again
and again in State Assemblies; but 1t has been
decided that groaning and coughing accord
better with the dignity of such meetings.
Formal divisions were not taken In the print
tive periods of deibcrative assemblies; the
mind of the majority YVES discovered by simpler
and quicker processes. Our Teu:onic ancestors,
according to Tacitus in his GsTnianiG, expressed
their affirmative vote by the brandishing of
their spears or rafting of their weapons; this,
he says, was their most complimentary form of
assent and appreciation. They voted their
''Nay" by uttcring a growing noise; ''if sentl-
rIents displeaSed them, they rejected them
with murmurs." The ST., PitttS, whatever 1t he,
was certainly in q lower and less insolent and
tone than the hiss.
StrabO tells us there was an officer "a mod
orator . in the old Gaulish assemblies whose
business it was to put down all interruption.
At the third summons he cut of piece of the
oSender's tartan with his sword. We do not
know that We may accuse James OF bringing
Kissing along with his other followers from
Scotland into England, but 1t was certainly
attempted at his first English Parliament, In
1904. Mr.. Hext moved against kissing to the
interruption and hindrance of any man IN the
House, taking occasion from an abuse of that
kind offered on Sunday before: "a thing" he
said, " derOgating from the dignity, not becom-
ing the gravity, and abusing the honor and
privilege of the House." In Thomas Burton's
diary of the Cromwellian Parliaments there
are complaints of cumming :" but it is not
said whether the hum was directed against the
speakers, or whether it was merely Irritating
Small-talk in an undertOne, carried on by those
who were determined not to listen.
The theatre is of course the classic and his
torical home of Kissing. 1 imagine that any
One with sufficient acquaintance with the de-
tails Of dramatic history and biography might
complete big book there; in other places 1t
has only lodged; it is 10 be finally dislodged
from other places, It will still, l suppose, as
sert q prescriptiye title to be heard there.
Theatre kissing is not only noticed by the
great dramatists Of all periods of our iitera-
ture, but / found it brought in to point moral
BY one Of our great English preachers, who
has most absurdly and uncritieally been taken
Tor Puritan, Thomas Adams. In a sermon
published in 1914, under the title ''The Sim
1er's Passing Bell, 4" be says: "The player that
nisacts an inferior and uunoted part carries IL !
Iway without censure; but IL he shall pley
Iome emperor or part Of observation unwor- |
hily the spectators are ready to hiss him of %
Plays, however, are Kissed as well as PLAYERS,
md the French have an untranslatsble adiec- /
i've which they apply to both. -
Kissing began in the theatres, saws the
french encyclopedias, as soon as there were |
,ad poets and bad actors impudent enough and !
gnorsnt enough to expose themselves TO the !
criticism of a great assembled world. The !
french call such actors and the works of such |
'oets syllable, (hissable;) they speak Of !
'eoRed5e syllable" an "detesIr syllable" / have
'nly heard of one attempt to dislodge Kissing
rom its home in the theatre, or rather to regu-
ate its hour; readers who are better acquainted
With theatrical history may know of others.
n December, 1919, the police of Copenhagen |
ssued the following curious ordinance: "After !
bis present notice, the public shall not
estify their dissatisfaction at the conclu-
81 Of a piece at the theatre until ten
minutes after the fall of the curtain.
1t the expiration of these ten minutes sig |.
al will be given by three beats on great
rum, and all those who after that shall hiss,
r give any other mark of disapprobation, will
o arrested as disturbers Of this public peace !"
French newspaper of the same year (from
'hich this ordinance is translated) says that
was infringed the very first night It was in
Orce, and that arrests were made accordingly
he fact that Kissing Is reckoned legitimate at 1
he theatres has ed men to CHOOSE them as the
lace for expressing their public dislikes in
mss Of great excitement. Shakspeare's Car
inal Wolsey was Kissed at the time of the
apai aggression, but the hiss was not meant for /
be actor, but for Cardinal Wfseman. Kisses
re directed at unpopular persons who come
s spectators, and not as actors. Sir William
Iniehton says that George ~ always entered
he theatre with an excessive dread OF being sa-
uted with this mark of public disapprobsticn
II he heard one single hiss, although IL were
drowned In general and tumultu-
US applause, he went home Hretched, and
Tould lie awake all night thinking Of that one
gly note, and not of the thousand agreeable
otes. Sometimes 1t has not been one visitor,
ut a whole party of visitors who have had the
isses Of tie spectators directed upon them.
D one of the periodical ESSAYS" poor imita-
ons OF the 7'atlcr and Spectator, which
ppeAred in such numbers throughout the
ighfeenth century (the Pratsr, 1f5G, repub-
shed as q. book IN 1757) we are told that the I
Dnduct of ladies' In the theatres, was often SO 4
that the audience Missed them into
HENCE, 1t seems that they talk ed and laughed
D loudly as to render the actors inaudible. I