THE CURSE OF THE KISS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8816, 18 May 1907, Page 4

THE CURSE OF THE KISS.

Driven to despair by the maimers of her employers, who demanded kisses as portion of the clay’s routine 1 , Miss Maudie McOhesuey, iu a burst of bitterness, says she is ready to sell unlimited kisses for cash doutn. She is a pretty young woman of 33, with beautiful brown hair and expressive eyes. At present Maud is in Denver, U.S.A., and her remarks give an insight into American business methods. Here is an advertisement which she sent to a local paper, and which.was refused; — “Men always want to kiss me. When they want to employ me as stenographer they always insist on receiving a wealth of kisses. They do this to nearly every young woman. My affection is worth something—if kisses can be called affection—and as kisses seem to be something much desired, I am ready to sell an unlimited number. ’ ’ Miss Maud McOhesuey was born in Richmond, Virginia. She is a stenographer by occupation, and has held positions as dork, milliner, 1 telephone operator, and actress. < 1 The pretty girl who is to make her living is to be pitied,” says Miss McOhesuey. ‘ It’s a kiss here, a kiss there, a kiss everywhere. It yon don’t want to kiss your em- ' ployer you are discharged. ’ ’ The first position offered Maud was that of a stenographer for an insurance firm. Going into the manager’s private office to take dictation the first morning, Miss McOhesuey was greeted with ‘ 1 Put down your note book and give me a kiss, little grl.” “A nice way to begin the morning, don’t you think?” is Miss MeOhesuey’s comment. At this time she was only 17. Later the bookkeeper, a girl several years Miss MoOhesuey’s senior, advised her to submit to'an occasional kiss, adding, “It don’t really hurt you, you kuow, and ho is awfully nice to us all.” Carefully dodging, using tact and thought worthy of a better cause, the situation was prevented from reaching a climax for throe ~mouths. At the end of this time, howeveu, she was unable longer to avert the inevitable, and resigned the place. “I next obtained a, position as book-keeper for a medicine firm in Des Moines,” said Miss McOhesney to an interviewer, “and before I had been in the office an hour the manager took hold of my arm in what was supposed to be an accidental way. I let that pass, but a few days later he put his arm around my waist, saying something about it being a ‘neat little waist.’ I told him I had just left a position down the street to escape that sort of unpleasant attention, and that iu case j I was '.again annoyed I should leave his employ. That made him angry, as he informd me with a sneer that I was a fool, he would not hurt me, and that I need no think I was ‘ the only pebble on the beach. ’ My next unpleasant experience,” continued Miss McOhesuey, “was in Centre - Till, a small town in lowa. I was still in my seventeenth year,- and looked younger. A man who travelled for a large piano firm sent for me to call at his hotel, saying that he needed a stenographer, and understood that I was looking for work. I called upon him iu the parlour of the hotel. He was willing to pay £3 'a week and all expenses. I had not understood that it was a travelling position, and said so, als sayng that I was afraid that i was not competent. But the traveller thought I was the girl for the job. ‘You can make out reports, can’t you, and use the typewriter? Oh, you’ll get along all right. There isn’t much to do. If you will step acres; the hall to my office I’ll show you how simple it is. I can got a girl down here,’ ho continued, she is a cracker-jack stenographer, but Id rather have you. You look awfully good to mo. Bo nice, give mo a kiss, and lot’s bo good friends.’ Ho started towards me, evidently sure of my acquiescence. I said if be touched mo I’d scream, and ho replied, ‘Go ahead ; scream if you want to. They’d ask you what you’re doing hero, and anyway the proprietor and I are pals.’ He kissed me ; I screamed, and ho pushed me out of the door, and I fairly flew down fclio hall find out into tlic street.” In 1904, iu St. Louis, Miss McOhesuey was offered a post by an insurance magnate. “What he really needed was a girl who could take dictation after dinner iu his apartment, lie assured me—and do the work at home. Bor this lie was willing lo pay, lie said, the sum of £8 a “mouth, with an occasional trinket or something which X particularly wanted thrown iu, and, he concluded, considering the perqu’sitcs, I think you arc a pre tty lucky girl, don’t you.” But Miss McOhesuey refused. One day at tue table of a Colorado Hotel Miss MeChesacy was left alone with an Eastern man, unmistakably a man of refinement and wealth. He opened conversation in this way: “you’re too bright a girl,” he said, “to waste your time hero. Come down to Chicago and work for me; , you're a stenographer, aro’ut you? Well, I’ll give you a job. ” He rose to go, adding, “Get away for a couple of weeks anyhow, and moot me in Denver, and I’ll take you to Chicago, show' you what life is, and send you back if yuu want to come, and it won’t cost you a cent. Think it over nud lot me kuow to-night.” Miss McOhesuey lias been a show girl with touring companies. She found herself iu this way at Denver. Here the kiss curse again proved her undoing. The manager met her after lie had been drinking and saluted her in this way: “Hollo, Maudie", old girl! You’re all to the mustard! Do you kuow, you’re the bost-lookiug girl we’ve had yet, and we’ve had some stunners. Come, give papa a kiss—sure !” The girl hesitated. “You decline with thanks? You don’t approve of kissing, I suppose? You take this dune and go out and buy yursolf aui ce little balloon aud go right up to heaven. You are entirely too good for this position you have got, aud we have too many girls, anyhow.” Aud so Maud, bo lug again without a berth, through no fault of her own, has offered to sell kisses at so much a dozen, like any other article of commerce.