The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-12-17
HOW DO YOU DO?
FAMILIAR GREETING WHICH
 HAS BECOME A MoCKERY.
Modes of Salutation in Different Countries-The Decline of Chiv- alry-For Centuries England
 Was the Land of Kisses.

It has often been pointed out, some
 what fancifully perhaps, that the modes of greeting current in different coun- tries are sometimes nationally or racial ly characteristic, says The London Globe.
 '"rhe Spahiard or the Italian says, How
 do you stand?" which may be referred either of stateliness or laziness. The Frenchman. careful of department asks. How do you carry yourself? The Dutch man, fond of the table. salutes you with May you eat hearty dinnerr while the Englishman, the man of action, says,
 How do you doT More markedly char
 acteristic are some of the equivalent
 phrases among non-European peoples
 The peasants of Southern China, for in- stance, asks tenderly. Have you eaten your rice?" and at Cairo they inquire sympathetically How do you sweat?"
 Our English How do you do?' is a direct translation of the medieval French form of greeting. Comment le faites- vous?' and seems to have come into com mon use toward the end of the seven- teenth century. Curiously enough, its general acceptance appears to have coin cided with the dying out of the old mode of greeting ladies, which was emphatic ally known as saluting. and which seems to modern ideas so extraordinarily fa- miliar and intimate-that is, by kissing
 Englishmen are sometimes inclined to re- gard with rather a superior air the more effusive methods of salutation, especially between men, common on the continent; but for centuries England was the land of kisses. When q man greeted a wo- man. whether 1t was for the first or the hundredth time, he kissed her. Chaucer alludes to the custom as existing in his day. In the "Sompnour's Tale" the EraTe when the Dnip rN h.. enters the room where he and her hus- band are sitting together,
 Ariseth up full curtisly,
 And hire embrace in his armes narwe, And klsseth hire swete, and cherketh
 as a sparwe
 With his Hppes.
 Two hundred years later Erasmus, in one of his graphic letters from England wrote very appreciatively of the custom: If you go to any place." he tells his correspondent with reference to English ladies. you are received with a kiss by all; If you depart on a journey you are dismissed with kiss; you return. kisses are exchanged. They come to visit you you kiss them all around Do they meat you anywhere kisses in abundance" It was no wonder that Erasmus told his friend that If he had once had experi- ence of the custom. "on my honor you would wish not to reside here for ten years only, but for life''
 This mode of salutation continued in fashion more or less through the seven- teenth century and into the eighteenth, but occasionally there were protests. Bunyan condemned 1t severely in his Grace Abounding." and other serious writers followed his lead. Like other fashions. it died out gradually, first among the quality" as society people were then called, in town, and later among the country folk. In the Spectator for December g. I'll, there is an amusing letter from a country gentleman greatly perturbed by the behavior of a young ex- quisite from London. The worthy squire lived on his own estate, was hospitable, and, according to his own account, was lever reckoned among the ladies the best in the world" 'T never came in publick." he continued. but 1 saluted them. though in great assemblies, all around. where it was seen how genteely I avoided hampering my spurs in their petticoats, while I moved among them, and on the other side how prettly they curtsied and received me. standing in