The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1903-11-06
VANISHING OF THE KISS.
The Elusive Fashion of Greeting Be-
tween Women Is No Longer
in Vogue.

What has become of the old-fash-
toned form of salute among Womena
Time was when no two women could
meet or part without exchanging a
kiss. 1t was the conventional greet
ing, not to be omitted under pain OF
being thought cold, distant, naughty,
says the Richmond News-Leader. A
kiss between two women is considered
by the masculine on-looker as spe-
cies of amiable treachery. How these
women love each other" he says, with
a sneer, and is quite prepared to near
them rend each others regulations two
minutes later. Nor is he always dis
appointed.
The kiss-or the buss, as it was
called in the earlier days-has stead~
lily degenerated from sign OF hearty
affection to a sign of conventional IN
difference, or rather signal OF a mo-
ment's truce between conflicting per-
sonalities. The origin of the kiss IS
disputed. 1t smacks of the days OF
gods and goddesses when Pygmalion
animated his Galatea by the touch OF
his lips, and Pyramus and Thisbe
mingled their breath through hole
in the wall.
Job mentions it: eff 1 behold the
sun when it shined, or the moon walk
ing in brightness; and my heart hath
been secretly enticed or my mouth
hath kissed my hand" etc.; and Ho-
mer makes Priam kiss the hand OF
hol,; has hQ0n
kissed since Constantine /. thrust his
foot under the lips of Emperor JUS
tinian on his entry into Constantl-
nople, and the queen OF England TO-
day kisses the young women OF high
family who are presented to her; but
the spirit of the kiss is gone as lar as
it's exchange between two of the same
sex is concerned. We no longer be-
hold rapturous greeting of long-parted
friends, bubble of words surrounded
by a froth of kisses.
"You dear (kiss) sweet (liss) thing.
I am so perfectly (kiss) overJoyed to
see YOU (kiss, kiss). Instead, there Is
the manly shake of the hand and
Hello, Peggy! It's jolly to have you
UdCh dSd1u, III olhNOlO ~ SSS
what masculine accent.
A great many newspaper people who
have nothing better to write about are
stirring themselves into ferment over
the loss of femininity among women.
1t bodies ill for the future of the race,
they say, and go into wordy spasms
over the Clarissas and Lydia Lam
guishes of so years ago, who spent
their lives fainting and reviving, work.
ing endless samplers and dissolving
into tears. The affections of those days
which are enormously classed under
the head of "femininities" are all the
better for a vigorous pruning.
A little exposure to the air and sun
light and the removal of few layers
of that old-fashioned cotton batting
known as protective chivalry," in
which men of half century ago were
wont to swaddle their women kind,
have done wonders for the sex. A
woman may be just as womanly in a
shirt waist as she was in hoopskirt,
just as attractive on the golf links or
the tennis courts as dropping over an
embroidery frame like a flower that
has been raised in the shade; and il
she has decided that kissing is one Of
the fashions or the affectations that
should long ago have been relegated to
the past, who will say that the charm
of her frank handshake and her hear
ty greeting to the friend Of ner bosom
is not as winsome as the too-exagger-
ated salute that has recently passed
into history!