The San Francisco call., 1899-07-19
CRIME AND
THE KISSES
OF HOBSON
Lombroso Takes a Pessim-
istic View of This Latest
Phenomenon.
TALKS OF LIBERTY
Our People Carried Away by
Military Ardor in the
Philippines.

Special Gable to The Call and the New York
don Bennett.
LONDON, July 18.-Lombroso, the
Italian crimtnologist and alienist, has
contributed an article entitled AN Epi-
demic of Kisses in America" to the
forthcoming August number of the Pail
Mall Magazine. To Lieutenant Hobson
the learned professor ascribes the in
ception of this epidemic, and he finds
that this sudden ebullition of kisses in
America is so strikingly phenomenal as
to call for some examination from
pathological standpoint.
The professor starts out with a mis-
statement of fact inasmuch as Hob
sons first experience with kissing in
public did not take place at Vassar Col
lege, as the professor asserts, but at
Long Beach.
Again, the professor seems to have
taken too seriously the exaggerated re-
ports Of HobsOn's kissing bees, as wit
ness his opening statement:
The doughty deed of Lieutenant
Hobson. who scuttled the Merrimac in
Santiago HarbOr and freely risked his
life in the bold project of locking the
Spaniards in their own port, is fresh in
the memory of all. We are told that
when, after the war, the gallant sailor
gave an account of his exploit at Vas
sar College, a lady who was at his lee
ture expressed a wish to kiss the hero,
and her example was followed by all
the ladies present.
''Hobson subsequently lectured in all
the leading cities of the United States,
and in the course of his tour he was
kissed by no less than 10000 women.
hey SiHar q Of
the Anglo-SaXon race in expressing its
enthusiasm; when we consider the
modesty of it's women. and when, above
all. we consider the self-possession and
hardheadedness of the American citi-
zen, this phenomenon appears so strik-
ing as to call for some explanation from
a pathological standpoint.
I'm the case of Hobsons 10. 900 kisses.
the strangeness and uncOnventionality
of which were heightened by their pub
licity. the most striking fact is that lie
was addressing a crowd of especially
elite persons. A crowd is domain
in which microbes of evil develop more
rapidly than microbes of good, becau use
the good elements of the individual are
eliminated by numbers or by the pres
ence of even a single morbid element.
The disturbances arise mainly from the
stronger influence which few de-
praVed persons in crowd exercise
upon it, for, being of an active nature.
they oversway the virtuous, who are by
nature more passive.
This baleful influence Is yet more
marked in a crowd of women, partly
because it includes a larger proportion
of hysterical persons who give and re-
CeiVe suggestion more readily than oth-
ers. and partly because, aside from
their hvsterical tendencies. women are
more open to suggestion, more inclined
to run to extremes than men. In
highly cultured race, in a crowd where
women prepOnderated and under condl-
tions of most justifiable enthusiasm the
outcome at best no crime. was never
theIess a breach of social decorum. q
violation of that sense of mOdesty
which is so keen in the Anglo-SaXon,
for whom the price Of a stolen kiss may
amount to a heavy fine
"A subsidiary cause of this breach of
decOrum may have been that sort Of
impertalistico- military ardor kindled
in the United States by the infamies CT
Spain. with it's absurd and impolitic re-
suit of the conquest Of the Philippines,
40 contrary to American feeling and
tradition"
Concluding, Professor Lombroso says:
"FeW men are so worthy of admiration
and enthusiasm as HobsOn, whose Mer-
rimac exploit is one of the bravest
deeds of our time, and an account of
II given by the hero himself was bound
to foment the enthusiasm or MS near
ers. who felt as though they had act
ually been present. Under these circum-
stances the kissing phenomenon loses
much of it's pathological aspect, more
especially as women are always warm
admirers of military valor The very
prosaism which permeates our times,
especially in America, makes these ex-
ceptional deeds the more provocative
of admiration and enthusiasm. 1t would
augur we'll for the glory Of the great
republic on which, at this time, the
gaze of the whole liberal world is fixed,
if in the flush of victory the military
ardor of your American cousin had re-
stricted itself to this single act. 1t
would augur we'll if having set one
people free they had refrained from
girding on the sword to force another
into slavery"