The important consequences connected with kissing—Arrah-na-Pogue—Refusing the sacrament on account of a kiss—How a child’s kiss affected the course of a desperate man—What a little mare’s kiss did—Brought to life by a kiss—The kiss of death—Kissing in tunnels—A mountain experience—Kissing the cook.

Many curious stories might be related of important consequences coming from a kiss. Sometimes a kiss proves useful. There is a romantic story of the great Irish rebellion, in which an imprisoned patriot under sentence of death was enabled to make his escape, the plan of operations being conveyed to him in a billet carried to him by his sweetheart in her mouth, and passed to him by the medium of a kiss through the iron grating of his dungeon. This was done under the very noses of the governor and sentinels placed there to intercept any improper communication. This story has been used in Arrah-na-Pogue, which means literally “Arrah of the kiss.”

In the “Memoirs of Adam Black,” published by his sons in Edinburgh, is related an incident which occurred in Adam’s youth, and illustrates the severe sort of orthodoxy that then prevailed among the Evangelicals of Scotland. On one sacrament Sunday morning the wife of the Rev. John Colquhoun, of Leith, being desirous of having him nicely rigged out for the occasion, had his coat well brushed, his shirt as white as snow, and his bands hanging handsomely on his breast; and when she surveyed her gudeman, she was so delighted with his comely appearance that she suddenly took him around the neck and kissed him. The Rev. John, however, was so offended by this carnal proceeding, that he debarred his wife from the sacrament that day.

In a prison at New Bedford, Mass., there was a man whom we will call Jim, who was a prisoner on a life sentence. He was regarded as a desperate, dangerous man, ready for rebellion at any hour. He planned a general outbreak, but was “given away” by one of the conspirators. He plotted a general mutiny or rebellion, and was again betrayed. He then kept his own counsel, and while never refusing to obey orders, he obeyed like a man who only needed backing to make him refuse to. One day, a party of strangers came into the institution. One was an old gentleman, the others ladies, and two of the ladies had small children. The guide took one of the children on his arm, and the other walked until the party came to climbing the stairs. Jim was working near by, sulky and morose as ever, when the guide said to him: “Jim, won’t you help this little girl up the stairs?”

The convict hesitated, a scowl on his face; and the little girl held out her arms to him and said: “If you will, I guess I’ll kiss you.” The scowl vanished in an instant, and he lifted the child as tenderly as a father. Half-way up the stairs she kissed him. At the head of the stairs she said, “Now, you’ve got to kiss me, too.”

He blushed like a woman, looked into her innocent face, and then kissed her cheek, and before he reached the foot of the stairs again the man had tears in his eyes. From that day he was a changed man, and no one in the place gave less trouble. Maybe in his far Western home he had a Katie of his own. No one knows, for he never revealed his inner life; but the change so quickly wrought by a child gave hope that he would forsake his evil ways.

When Mr. Cole, a well-known circus proprietor in the South, sold his stock in New Orleans, three dun ring horses that he had owned for years went with the others by mistake. Mr. Cole at once bought them back, saying that he would never consent to have the horses become the property of any one who would make them work, and that he had decided to put them to a painless death. He proposed bleeding them to death, but W. B. Leonard, a liveryman, suggested that the use of chloroform would be a better and less painful mode. This was finally decided upon, and a reliable man procured, who was to have performed the operation.

They were all collected in the circus tent. There were Cole, Leonard, the riders and the clowns, the ringmaster, the tumblers and leapers, and the three pet duns. Calling the little mare by name, he told her to kiss them all good-bye. The intelligent animal, stretching forward her head, kissed each one. This was more than they could stand, and the sacrifice was put off. Cole had no place to take them to, so Mr. Leonard promised to find some one who would assume charge of them, under a guarantee never to work them, but to keep them in good order until death should claim them for the grave.

A remarkable case of a child being brought back to life by a kiss occurred in Louisville, Ky. A man named Joseph Meyer had two children, a boy about ten years and a girl about two months old. This baby, which appeared healthy, was suddenly taken ill with something like convulsions, and came very near dying before medical aid could be summoned. The doctor was called in and gave the child some medicine, not thinking, however, that it could possibly live. He then left, but returned the next morning. When he reached the house the child was barely breathing, and in a few minutes afterwards respiration stopped altogether. Every appearance of death was visible; the face assumed the hue of death, the jaw dropped, limbs relaxed, and the eyes became glazed. The doctor examined the pulse, and listened for the beating of the heart, but failing to find any signs of life, pronounced the child dead. It lay thus for fully ten minutes, with the members of the family grouped around the bed lamenting, as is usual in such cases. The little girl’s brother, who was just old enough to understand the situation, and who seemed to be greatly grieved, suddenly stepped from the circle and approached the supposed corpse, leaned over and imprinted a kiss upon the pallid lips. The baby’s mouth was slightly open, and in kissing her the boy blew his breath down her throat. The little lips suddenly moved, the child gave one or two sudden gasps and then commenced to breathe, slowly and feebly at first, and then gradually stronger, until respiration became almost natural. Every one around was terribly astonished at this unlooked-for coming back from the dead, and did not seem to realize the fact until the child had been breathing for half an hour. The little one rapidly improved, and eventually regained its health.

An old Roman Catholic missionary in a little Mexican town speaks of a curious superstition among his people in regard to a certain grave in the cemetery. “A spirit,” he says, “is said to have appeared to every one buried in that grave, and to warn the family whenever any of them is about to pass away. Its appearance, which is generally made in the following manner, is believed to be uniformly fatal, being an omen of death to those who are so unhappy as to meet with it.

“When a funeral takes place, the spirit is said to watch the person who remains last in the graveyard, over whom it possesses a fascinating influence.

“If the person be a young man, the spirit takes the shade of a fascinating young female, inspires him with a charmed passion, and exacts a promise that he will meet her at the graveyard a month from that day. This promise is sealed with a kiss that communicates a deadly taint to him who complies. The spirit then disappears. No sooner does the person from whom it received the promise and the kiss pass the boundary of the churchyard than he remembers the history of the spectre. He sinks into despair and insanity and dies. If, on the contrary, the spectre appears to a young woman, it assumes the form of a young man of exceeding elegance and beauty.”

On the subject of the humors of kissing there is abundant material to draw from. Stories about kissing in tunnels naturally come to mind. The well-known court-plaster incident is said to have occurred in one of the tunnels of the Hudson River Railroad. A very pretty lady was seated opposite to a good-looking gentleman, who was accompanying a party to Saratoga Springs. It was observed that this exceedingly handsome young woman had the smallest bit of court-plaster on a slight abrasion of the surface of her red upper lip. As the cars rambled into the darkness of the tunnel, a slight exclamation of “Oh!” was heard from the lady, and when the cars again emerged into the light, the little piece of court-plaster aforesaid had become in some mysterious manner transferred to the upper lip of the young gentleman.

Horace Vernet, the artist, was going from Versailles to Paris by railway. In the same compartment with him were two ladies whom he had never seen before, but who were evidently acquainted with him. They examined him minutely, and commented freely upon his martial bearing, his hale, old age, the style of his dress, etc. They continued their annoyance until finally the painter determined to put an end to the persecution. As the train passed through the tunnel of St. Cloud, the three travelers were wrapped in complete darkness. Vernet raised the back of his hand to his mouth and kissed it twice violently. On emerging from the obscurity he found that the ladies had withdrawn their attention from him, and were accusing each other of having been kissed by a man in the dark.

Presently they arrived at Paris, and Vernet, on leaving them, said: “Ladies, I shall be puzzled all my life by the inquiry, which of these two ladies was it that kissed me?”

There have been some amusing osculatory experiences in the far western part of our country. A young Montana chap, upon stepping aboard of a sleeping-car, thus addressed the conductor: “See here, captain, I want one of your best bunks for this young woman, and one for myself individually. One will do for us when we get to the Bluff—hey, Mariar?” (Here he gave a playful poke at “Mariar,” to which she replied: “Now, John, quit.”) “For, you see, we’re goin’ to git married at Mariar’s uncle’s. We might a bin married at Montanny, but we took a habit to wait till we got to the Bluff, bein’ Mariar’s uncle is a minister, and they charge a gosh-fired price for hitchin’ folks at Montanny.”

“Mariar” was assigned one of the best “bunks.” During a stoppage of the train at a station, the voice of John was heard in pleading accents, unconscious that the train had stopped, and that his tones could be heard throughout the car:

“Now, Mariar, you might give a feller jes one.”

“John, you quit, or I’ll git out right here and hoof it back to Montanny in the snowstorm.”

“Only one little kiss, Mariar, and I hope to die if I don’t——”

“John——”

At this moment an old gray-beard poked his head out of his berth, at the other end of the car, and cried out:

“Maria, for pity’s sake, give John one kiss, so that we can go to sleep some time to-night.”

Thereupon John subsided and retired to his berth to dream of the distinction between the hesitancy of the kiss of courtship and the freedom of the kiss connubial.

A young and romantic Western girl, kissed for the first time, said that she felt like a tub of butter swimming in honey, cologne, nutmegs, and cranberries, and as though something was running through her nerves on feet with diamonds, escorted by several little Cupids in chariots drawn by angels, shaded with honeysuckles, and the whole spread with melted rainbows!

Among the comic songs about kissing, the one about Esau is the best:

A young lady of the gushing sort, while passing through one of the military hospitals, overheard the remark that a young lieutenant had died that morning.

“Oh, where is he? Let me see him. Let me kiss him for his mother!” exclaimed the maiden.

The attendant led her into an adjoining ward, when, discovering Lieutenant H., of the Fifth Kansas, lying fast asleep on his hospital couch, and thinking to have a little fun, he pointed him out to the girl. She sprang forward and, bending over him, said: “Oh, you dear Lieutenant, let me kiss you for your mother.”

What was her surprise when the awakened “corpse” ardently clasped her in his arms, returned the salute with interest, and exclaimed:

“Never mind the old lady, Miss; go it on your own account; I haven’t the least objection.”

There is the experience of kissing the cook. “I say, Mr. Smithers,” said Mrs. Smithers to her husband, “didn’t I hear you down in the kitchen kissing the cook?” “My dear,” replied Smithers, blandly, “permit me to insist upon my right to be reasonably ignorant. I really cannot say what you may have heard.” “But wasn’t you down there kissing the cook?” “My dear, I really cannot recollect. I only remember going into the kitchen and out again. I may have been there, and from what you say I infer I was. But I cannot recollect just what occurred.” “But,” persisted the ruthless cross-examiner, “what did Jane mean when she said: ‘Oh, Smithers, don’t kiss so loud, or the old she-dragon up-stairs will hear us?’” “Well,” said Smithers, in his blandest tones, “I cannot remember what interpretation I did put on the words at the time. They are not my words, you must remember.”

Our journey in the sweet fields of osculation stops here. As a conclusion to the whole matter, let us say with the immortal bard: