AUSTRALIAN.

Hokitika Guardian, 19 October 1918, Page 1

AUSTRALIAN.

[PEK PUESS ASSOCIATION. COPYRIGHT.!

SHOULD KISSING BE BANNED

SYDNEY, October 9

'The Society of Health Inspectors, which has been holdings its annual conference in Sydney has had the practice of kissing under solemn review. Here is what one earnest officer pro- I posed: “It is the opinion of the Society that, in the interest of public health, by the prevention of the spread of infectious diseases, particularly tuberculosis, from those infected to the healthy, the Department of Public Health ’be urged to take such steps as may be considered expedient to suppress the dangerous, silly, and unnecessary custom of ‘kissing,” The matter was debated at some length and in the discussion the delegates revealed much of their characters. The staid and solemn gentlemen who, no doubt approved of the placing of “kissing” in quotation marks in the resolution, were in favour of the abolition of the practice, but in some doubt as to how to attack the problem. The young and foolish .members of the conference treated the matter with levity and assisted the reporters to some good copy. One man complained that persons would persist in going away to private and secret places for their kisses, and he could not sec how they were going to be stopped. Another gentleman declared sweopinglv that the only way to stop it in Sydney would be to lock the whole population 'in prisons, one for each sex. “And j then,” he added bitterly, “they’d prob- | ably kiss their hands to each other, j Eventually the conference decided that the matter must be left to the discretion of the individual.