“ NOTHING BUT KISSES”

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 3452, 2 October 1913, Page 7

“ NOTHING BUT KISSES”

FINE TIMES IN ENGLAND. Kissing has been officially prohibited at the railway station of Sarmen, in Switzerland. In England in the seventeenth century the habit flourished to such an extent that- the foreign visitor was bewildered by its prevalence. Nicolaus de. Betlilen, who travelled in England in 1665, writes that j “My brother and I behaved very rude,ly on one occasion, being unaware that it was customary in that country |to kiss the corner of the mouth of j ladies, instead of shaking hands, as .we d oin Hungary. We were invited to 1 din 9at the house of a gentleman of ! high rank, and found his wife and j three daughters (one of them married) : ready to receive us. IVe 'kissed tlis i girls, but not the married ladies, and thereby greatly offended the latter. Duval’apologised for otir launder, and told us that-when saluting we must always kiss the senior lady first and leajve the girls to the last.” The learned and sedate Eramus, in 1 1499, wrote o latin letter from England to his friend Fausto Anfrolini,advising him to come here at once, for he remarks, “Here are girls with angel’s faces who will receive you with kisses, They come to visit you, kisses again. Should they meet you, any--1 where, kisses in abundance, in fine, I wherever you move there is nothing but kisses.” In 1466 a Bohemian nobleman named Leo von Rozmital visited England, and in the “Journal of His Travel,” publislid in 1577, lie noted: “It is the custom there that on the arrival of a distinguished stranger from foreign parts the hostess with all herrifamily goes uot to meet him, and he guests are required to kiss them all, and this amnog the English was the same as shaking hands among other nations.”