Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1903-08-22
A Chapter on Kissing.
The following odd scraggly look
ing lines are poetry:

l The following odd scraggly look
ing lines are poetry:
The maid could play the piano
Make pies and Holsters salads,
Could quote you scripture by the hour
Or Whitcomb Riley's ballads
No girl could waltz more gracefully
Or talk with better sense
No girl could better climb a tree
Or cross barb-wire fence.
She had dainty little foot
She had winsome waist
She didn't have to pad or paint
And always dressed in taste
She wouldn't flirt nor act the fool
Nor swear to be your sister;
! And vet this maiden had one fault
! She rooted when you kissed her!
Did you ever kiss a feminine
friend who wouldn't hold her
mouth still but kept roofing around
in an effect to get away? Of course
I mean your sister or mother or
cousin or aunt or some other near
and dear friend-like your steno-
grapher or the hired girl. I never
was mixed up in anything of the
kind myself am naturally SO
shy and backward and my dignified
style of blonde beauty is SO I'm
suited to such frivolities out ]
have a brother who is a great col
lector of osculatory thrills and lip
tickles. He told me the clrcum-
stances which I have immortalized
in the above touching poem.
The above are merely preliminary
or Introductory remarks intended
to arrest your garbled and mis-
guided attention while insert a
suggestion into the waxen recesses
of your organs of hearing. I have
been compiling a bunch of polled
angus statistics and [ find that
every periodical from the greatest
metropolitan journal clear down to
the sticky rural rags edited by my
contemporaries for thirty miles
around have had in them from two
to fourteen and a half editorials on
the subject of kissing in the past
three weeks. Papers hardly big
enough to flag a handcar and with
out news enough in them to en-
Tighten a jellyfish have come to my
desk with editorials on spitswapp-
ing and kindred topics that must
have required quarts OF brain
sweat. Doctors and lawyers and
preachers and soldiers and actors
and authors and politicians have
contributed interviews that are as
founding for their careful absti-
nence from accurate knowledge.
I know all about the subject and
would have settled it long ago
but owing to the frozen lake traffic
I have been busy stealing coal.
The discussion of kissing which has
of late assumed such prominence
started a few years ago when Hob
son fell into the creek-and was
aggravated by the invention of
the kissing bug. These two
episodes got the press to digging
up osculatory thrills which in turn
excited the public nerves and gen.
Grated more thrills-and so it went.
It's just like buying coaling stations
to protect your islands and more
islands to protect your coaling
stations until by and by you own
the earth. If the agitation about
kissing keeps up the world will
ultimately become two large
luscious mouths and there will be
an earthquake when they come to-
gether. The thing for the public
to do is to read this article and then
drop the subject. But like every
other craze this one must pass
through the reformer stage. The
reformers now have it in charge
and will not be satisfied till they
have petitioned congress for relief
or started clubs where the young
folks can abolish kisses by eating
them up.
The trouble is not that OSCILLATION
is new fad for kisses have been
bought, begged, borrowed and
stolen since time began. They have
been a source of sorrow to mankind
since Eve pressed her virgin lips to
the apple in the garden of Eden
and will be till the last sad, sorrow
full smack is heard amidst the crash
of worlds when Gabriel toots. The
reason this ancient and highly re-
spected diversion is now looked at
askance is that frivolous persons
have handled it too recklessly.
Kisses are fragile things and should
be kept in warm, moist place in
a dark room. Under no circum-
stances should they be exposed to