Arizona republican., 1896-03-15
KISSING BETWEEN WOMEN.
Osculation That Is Devoid of All
 Sincerity.
It Is Done as a Mere Matter of Form and Is Often Full of Deceit and Treach-
 ery-The More the Hate the Sweater the Kiss.

It is not imaginable, on any possible view of the subject, that there is the slightest pleasurable result expe- rienced by ladies when they kiss each other, much less one demonstrable by the most delicate scientific methods of investigation. An ordinarily hearty hand-shake would lick it all to fits in this respect.
 Learned men in the middle ages, who spent much time in discussion of trivial ties and in hair-splitting, enumerated a host of different kinds of kisses, though they, after all, wound up the whole mat ter by admitting that there is only one true kiss-the kiss of love, and they put the kiss between women very far down on the list as thing of no account or value, being thus in accord with the conclusions of all sensible people who have studied the question.
 Still, says a writer in the New York Advertiser, we have to do with facts, and women, for all that may be said against the practice, do kiss each other, u,G4 the subject, I asked my wife whether she found any pleasure in kissing any member of her own sex.
 ''Poohi" was all the reply she deigned to give, though presently, after appar- ently cogitating and arriving at the conclusion that this ejaculation, expres- sive enough in it's way, could not help me very much, she made some remarks which were altogether, to the male sex too vague to be here set down at large Ultimately managed, by pressing the question, to elicit something definite on the subject, the gist of which was that, when women kiss each other, they do SO merely as a matter of form, meaning by it for the most part no more than a mere handshake, and often less, for there may be warmth in that, but na- ture has denied the possibility of warmth existing in kiss between mem bers of the same sex. Sometimes, but very seldom, women kiss because they like each other.
 They also kiss because they don't like each other, and, in that case, they are sure never to lose an opportunity of kissing each other most punctiliously. They may hate to do it ever so much, and yet, whenever they meet, they eagerly make pretty little dab at each the eyes of outsiders as quite touch ing exhibition of womanly kindness and affection, though those who know the real state of affairs only smile, and perhaps remark: 'How Mrs. A. and Mrs. B. do hate each other, to be sure. See how sweetly they kiss!"
 The whole-hearted kiss of young girls, as yet innocent of the ways and deceitfulness of the world, is a pleas ant thing in itself; but once they are initiated into the wiles of society, there is no social usage which jars more on their tender feelings, before these be- come case hardened, than the feminine habit of kissing, which so transparent ly cloaks all manner of unpleasant and uncharitable thoughts They loathe it, yet, by degrees, they are drawn un- willingly into the whirl, until at last they, too, become adopts.
 When the female side of family, mother and grown-up daughters, be- come known to their acquaintances as given over to the vanity of kissing visitors all round, both on arrival and departure, the making of call on them becomes such an ordeal that, rather than run the gauntlet of so many osculations, however perfume torily performed, many of their friends, who find them in every other respect charming, feel constrained to reduce the number of their calls as far as pos sible, in despair of any feasible rem edy. There is no excuse for evading what has become rule of the house. You must take them as you find them, or leave them severely alone. It would be dire offense to refuse to offer the cheek to the kisser.
 Perhaps the time will come when all kissing will be strictly prohibited un- der threat of the severest penalties of the law. This has been tried, with more or less success, in some peculiar ly-minded communities. So far the doctors have practically put their veto on kissing of all kinds; but, then, what is there that the doctors have not for bidden?
 Telegraphing with a Steam Whistle.
 While Edison, then boy, was living