Men kissing each other in France, in England, and in Germany—Origin of the custom of kissing the Pope’s toe—Henry IV. and his punishment—Kissing the feet of royalty an ancient custom—Kisses as rewards of genius—The part osculation has paid in politics—Curious bargains for kisses—What legally constitutes a kiss—A kiss at auction—Giving $50 to kiss Edwin Booth.

To an Englishman, full of his insular reserve, there is something unmanly in the way men at a public railway station in France salute each other upon both cheeks; and yet in England itself it was at one time the recognized form of salutation. In Hone’s “Year Book” occurs the following passage:

“Another specimen of our ancient manners is seen in the French embrace. The gentleman, and others of the male sex, lay hands on the shoulders and touch the side of each other’s cheeks; but on being introduced to a lady, they say to her father or brother or friend, permettez moi, and salute each of her cheeks.”

During the time of James I. kissing was a common civility among men. Evelyn in his Diary and Correspondence, 1680, says in a letter to Mrs. Owen: “Sir J. Shaw did us the honor of a visit on Thursday last, when it was not my hap to be at home, for which I was very sorry. I met him since casually in London, and kissed him there unfeignedly.”

In Sir Walter Scott’s “Waverley,” after the Baron had shaken Edward heartily by the hand in the English fashion, he embraced him À-la-mode FranÇoise, and kissed him on both sides of his face; while the hardness of his gripe, and the quantity of Scotch snuff which his accolade communicated, called corresponding drops of moisture to the eyes of his guest.

Among the Germans it is no uncommon sight to find two great, bearded and mustached giants, kissing each other like a pair of turtle doves. In July, 1888, when the Emperor William met the Russian Czar at St. Petersburg, the two rulers embraced and kissed each other several times.

There is no doubt, however, that Germans fully appreciate osculation between members of the opposite sex. In a well-known German novel, this passage occurs: “Sophia returned my kiss and the earth went from under my feet; my soul was no longer in my body; I touched the stars; I knew the happiness of Seraphim.” And it may be added, that an enthusiastic old German beau of former times declared, as the result of practical experience, that kissing was an infallible cure for the toothache!

Among the English the custom has become obsolete. As for women kissing each other, the modern rhymster says:

As to the custom of kissing the Pope’s toe, Matthew of Westminster writes that it was customary at one time to kiss the hand of His Holiness, but that a certain woman in the eighth century not only kissed the Pope’s hand, but squeezed it. The Pope, seeing the danger to which he was exposed, cut off his hand, and afterwards offered his foot.

But another authority says that kissing the Pope’s toe was a fashion introduced by one of the Leos, who had mutilated his right hand and was too vain to expose the stump.

In Charles Reade’s “Cloister and the Hearth,” there is a short dissertation on some curious kissing customs. Fra Colonna, enamored of the pagan days, overwhelms Brother Jerome with copious quotations, showing the antiquity and pagan origin of many modern ecclesiastical customs. “Kissing of images and the Pope’s toe is Eastern paganism,” said Fra Colonna. “The Egyptians had it of the Assyrians, the Greeks of the Egyptians, and we of the Romans, whose Pontifax Maximus had his toe kissed under the Empire. The Druids kissed their High Priest’s toe a thousand years B.C. The Mussulmans who, like you, professed to abhor heathenism, kissed the stone of the Caaba—a pagan practice. The priests of Baal kissed their idols.”

Kissing the foot, or the toe, has been required by the popes as a sign of respect since the eighth century. The first to receive the honor was Constantine. It was paid to him by the Emperor Justinian II. on his entry into Constantinople 710. About 827 Valentine I. required every one to kiss his foot, and from that time this mark of reverence has been expected. The Pope wears a slipper with a cross, which is kissed. In recent times Protestants have not been required to perform the ceremony, but to bend the knee slightly. When the excommunicated German emperor, Henry IV., had been humbled by three days of penance, barefoot, and fasting, in the month of January, before the palace of Pope Gregory VII., he was admitted to “the superlative honor” of kissing the pontiff’s toe.

Kissing the feet of princes was a token of subjection which was sometimes carried so far that the print of the foot received the kiss, so as to give the impression that the very dust had become sacred by the royal tread, or that the subject was not worthy to salute even the prince’s foot, but was content to kiss the earth itself near, or on which he trod. The Bible says:

“And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers; they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord, for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.”—(Isaiah xlix. 23.)

“They shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth; they shall be afraid of the Lord our God and shall fear because of thee.”—(Micah, vii. 17.)

Kisses have been the reward of genius, as when Voltaire was publicly kissed in the stage-box by the young and lovely Duchess de Villars, who was ordered by an enthusiastic pit thus to reward the author of “Merope.” In politics they have been used as bribes, as in the famous Eatanswill elections of the “Pickwick Papers,” and also in a still more famous election. For, when Fox was contesting the hard-won seat at Westminster, the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire offered to kiss all who voted for the great statesman. And fully as famous, and perhaps in a better cause, was the self-denying patriotism of the beautiful Lady Gordon, who, when the ranks of the Scottish regiments had been sadly thinned by cruel Badajoz and Salamanca, turned recruiting sergeant, and, to tempt the gallant lads, placed the recruiting shilling in her lips, from whence who would might take it with his own.

In England, during the last century, a certain candidate for a Norfolk borough kissed the voters’ wives with guineas in his mouth, for which he was expelled the House. Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, gave Steel, the butcher, a kiss for his vote nearly a century since.

There have been bargains for kisses. A French poet speaks of a country girl who required “thirty sheep for one short kiss.” The shepherd thought the bargain a good one, but the next day he was agreeably astonished at being able to get from the same girl thirty kisses for one sheep. And then

Strode, a minor English poet of the seventeenth century, writes about how he and his sweetheart played for kisses:

Some time ago, a Mr. Finch, who was in the jewelry business in Newbern, sold to a young lady named Miss Waters what was described as a beautiful set of real jet, the bargain being that he was to receive in payment one hundred kisses, to be paid at the rate of one kiss daily. Mr. Finch was to call at the lady’s house every day, Sundays excepted, to receive his daily kiss, which Miss Waters undertook and promised to daily deliver to him. For thirty consecutive days, Sundays excepted, Mr. Finch punctually called upon Miss Waters, and duly received the stipulated salutation. On the thirty-first day, however, Mr. Finch made a formal complaint that Miss Waters was not fulfilling her contract, inasmuch as she insisted upon permitting him to kiss her cheek only. He maintained that this did not constitute a legal kiss, and demanded that he should be permitted to put his left arm around her waist and kiss her in the highest style of art. To this, however, a firm refusal was returned. The lady offered Mr. Finch a choice of cheeks, but insisted that the contract would not bear the construction put upon it. Thereupon Mr. Finch, in great indignation, brought an action for breach of contract against the lady. This action raised several new and interesting questions, among the most important of which was what constituted, in the eye of the law, a kiss. The plaintiff set up the further plea that there was a difference between active and passive kisses; that Miss Waters had promised to give him a certain number of kisses—not merely allow him to take them—and that giving kisses was an act which required the use of the lips. The case was the subject of considerable controversy in the press and elsewhere, but a compromise of some sort was brought about.

An equally remarkable kissing transaction occurred in Austria: In this instance a kiss was actually put up for sale at auction, and publicly bestowed upon the highest bidder. The occasion was a charity fÊte got up in the little town of Torrantal on behalf of the poor of Agram. The well-meant endeavor of the benevolent ladies and gentlemen who acted as salesmen and stall-holders to induce visitors to purchase trifles exposed for sale at twenty times their value had not succeeded. Business was not brisk. The public who had filled the sale were not in a generous mood, and the organizers of the fÊte were disheartened. At this juncture, one of the lady patronesses, a remarkably beautiful woman, had what she thought a happy inspiration. She took her husband aside, conferred with him for a few minutes, and shortly after, with his consent, offered a kiss to the highest bidder, the sum paid for the favor to be added to the receipts of the fÊte. Very low sums were at first offered by the young men—for, of course, the feminine portion of the visitors were not tempted by the opportunity—and ultimately the kiss was knocked down at the relatively paltry figure of fifteen florins and eleven kreutzers. The husband of the lady, seeing the slight store set by the favor, offered to pay the amount himself and take the kiss; but the claimant had already handed over the money, and as he refused to agree to the bargain being canceled, the kiss was exchanged before the assembled company.

It is said that a California girl disposed of her kisses at two cents apiece. One week her receipts were $11.25. At regular rates she should have had $11.75, but she sold one job lot of twelve dozen at $2.50, which accounted for the difference. One devoted admirer made a special contract. In consideration of his doing all his kissing with her, he was charged much less than the regular schedule rates. This traffic went on for some months without the knowledge of any persons except those immediately concerned.

There is a story to the effect that when Booth was traveling on the Boston & Albany Road one day, having just closed an engagement in the New England metropolis, he heard an expensively-dressed, handsome, middle-aged woman back of him sigh and say to her companion: “I would give fifty dollars to kiss that man!” Booth turned suddenly and looked at the speaker. “Do you mean that?” he demanded, fixing his fine, dark eyes upon her, and causing the blood to mount up to the very roots of her hair. “Why, yes, of course I do!” replied the woman, confusedly, looking in a helpless sort of way at the great tragedian and at the smiling passengers. “Well, I accept the terms, madam!” exclaimed Booth, solemnly. “And I stand by my proposition,” said the woman, recovering her self-possession, and, rising, she imprinted a sound kiss upon the actor’s lips. Booth’s face did not betray the slightest emotion. He received the kiss stolidly, and did not return it, but waited until the impetuous woman found her purse and handed him a fifty-dollar bill. He took the money, thanked her, and turning to a feeble, shabbily-dressed woman on the other side of the aisle, who was traveling with two young children, placed the money in her hands, and, with a courtly bow, said: “This is for the children, madam! Take it, please,” and, without another word, he left the car.