£800 FOR A KISS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 58, 8 March 1913, Page 21

£800 FOR A KISS.

: '"\ fBTNCE KICKED BY ANGRY BARBER. jle days are Jons gone when Erasmus wrote to his friend. Faustus, "There is a practice in England never to be sufficiestly commended, if you go to any place, are received with a kiss by all; if «ra depart on a journey, you are dismissed with a kiss; you return, kisses are 'exchanged. In face wherever you move ■ there is nothing but kisses"; and when L man would dream of leading Out a /air lady to dance without claiming the ■kbial tribute she was so willing to pay. -. It was Cromwell and his Roundheads who gave the death-blow lo the amiable 'jjd universal cuftrm. and made it such j dangerous pastime that even lovers dared not exchange salutes where any paying and envious eves could see theui. .jhus we find, for instance, that one Jacob .Jlarline and Sarah 'futile were haled tiefore the local bench of magistrates for "sitting down on a cheste together, his :Vrms about her waste and her arm upon "bis shoulder, or about his neck, and continuing in that sinful posture about half 'an hour, in which time he kyssed her ami she kyssed him. m they kyssed one aniother.'as ye witnesses testified." THORNS AND RUSES. But, truth to tell, kissing las always had its thorns mingled with its roses, ever since tDe too amorous cave-man dared to salute his neighbour's wife or daughter, and paid for his indulgence with a cracked ! skull. Even a Hovnl prince has been j known to be sorry for himself after kissing "not wisely but too well"; as when the Duke of Clarence (later, our fourth William), while travelling in Canada, ■ stole a kiss from the pretty wife of the barber who had shaved him. iThere, now," lie said boastfully, ''tell your countrywomen that the son of the King of England has given a Royal kiss , to a Yankee barber's wife." Scarcely had j the words left his lips when the knight of the razor lifted a vigorous foot and kicked Jim out of the door, with the remark, "There now. go and tell your countrymen that a Yankee barber has given a royal kick to the son of the King of England!" An even worse fate befell a too adventurous Australian in recent years. Mc vis taken before the Magistrates and heavily fined. Then he was horsewhipped by the girl's muscular brother, and "harried into a brain fever by his own wife." The clergyman of ins parish referred to the-outrage in a scathing sermon, to which the Press gave the fullest publicity; and, finally, "the caterpillars ate up every blade of the malefactor's wheatcrop!" "WARM MARK OF SYMPATHY." "Gentlemen, you may convict mc if you choose but you cannot make kissing unpopular," protested a defendunt charged irith a similar offence; and no doubt there will always be plenty of gallants ready to face the penalties for tbe sake of the pleasure, even tnough the former may be as heavy as some we have read of in the newspapers in recent years. Thus, when an Irish farmer walked iuto a grocer's shop and, without any preliminary beating about the bush, clasped the fair shop lady in his arms and kissed her, a Dublin jury placed a value of £120 on that solitary salflte; while a Parisian man-mil-liner whose appetite was not satisfied until he had embraced in turn, a round score of his work girls, no doubt counted the luxury rather dear for the 375 francs he was ordered to pay for it. In the United States such penalties are lightly incurred. In -a portentous list of recent convictions appear the following instructive entries: Hart man van Piper, jked.ten dollars for kissing Mrs. Marie .Lehmann, a widow; Marshall MeDauiels, twenty-seven dollars for kissing Airs. IViola Dias, a young married woman ; and George Butler, thirty days for a similar unprovoked assault on the lips of Mrs. ■William Beck—"the sentence being >in addition to a sound thrashing!" And all this, in spite of the ruling of the President of'the Supreme Court that "to kiss a-person cannot be a misdemeanour, as it is in the nature of a warm mark of sympathy!" One cannot help thinking that a more suitable punishment than fine or gaol for such delinquents would be a sentence of a few hundred "electric kisses." That ass, as all dabblers in science are aware, ■is.performed by means of the electric stool, a woman, the prettier the better, mounted upon the stool with her hand upon the chain connected with the prime conductor, challenges a man not in the secret to give her a salute. Upon his attempt t 0 obey, a spark flies in his face and effectually deters him from further .. ; adventure. Kisses from pretty lips have, as we all know, smoothed the way to Westminster for more legislators than Charles James fox; and this in days when a single vote Was-oft en worth _- 0 or more of a c _ n "date's money.. But such a sum would never have purchased the kiss offered a f* Wee ks ago by auction, for a charity, ty one of the most, beautiful of Par"i 3 /actresses. Tbe bidding soared higher and amid a f eV er of exciteMent .until it reached 20,000 francs. Any advance on 20,000 francs ?" asked i -IT im auctioneer, flushed with pride at ™ value placed on one of her kisses, of *»P she had any number in reserve. , eD ' amid a silence that was almost pamrui m its intensity, the dainty hammer fell. '"f 0 y QU _ -J onS j e _ r |M g ] le gaJQ^ smiling bewitchingly at an old gentleman. Madame," was the answer, "I am profoundly honoured. But such prizes are m for old age; bo with rnadame's gra™«s permission I will depute the honour f H mv , grandchild"; and raising a sweet Hgw boy in his arms, he received his kiss 0/proxy, amid thunders of cheers and deffinted laughter