Curious Kissing Customs.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume X, Issue 3195, 3 May 1889, Page 2

Curious Kissing Customs.

In the remotest ages men saluted the buu, moon, and stars' ; .by kissing the hand, a superstition .to which the Patriarch Job was never addicted, as he emphatically asserts in the thirtyfirst chapter 'and the; twenty-sixth ■ verse of his book. It was the oustom ; of the earliest Christian Bishops to ■ give their hands to be kissed , by; the Ministers who served at the] altar. The dustOnv soon declined, however, as a : religious ceremony, but it is still continued as a Court ceremonial, the kissing of the hand of the gov-' ereign being regarded as a 'mark of the highest favor;in most of the king- - doms of Christendom. It is a matter of history that the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire bribed with a kiss many a reluctant voter for Fox. at the famous Westminster election, and the,equally beautiful and bewitching Lady Gordon when the Scottish regiments - had been thinned by cruel . reverses, turned recruiting .sergeant, and to. tempt; the gallant lads, placed the recruiting shilling -in her lipr, - whence he might take it with his own; i "In Finland, the womeu consider a salute upon the ■ lips as, the greatest insult, even from their husbands. It was atone time the custom of English duellists to kiss each other before firing. This piece of hypocrisy was satirised by John Wesley in his Journal, under date ■ June . 16, 1758, recording a duel between two- officers at Limerick: "Mr B. proposed firing at twelve, yards. Mr J. said 1 No, six is enough.' So they kissed each other (poor farce); and before, they .were five paces ; asunder,. 'both fired on the ■ instant.", Mahomedans,' on., their pious pilgrimage to Mecca kiss the 1 sacred black stone and the four corners of the iKaaba. , lhe .Romish priest oh Palm Sunday, kisses ■_ the palm. .There is a curious tradition about the origin of kissing the. toe of the. Sovereign Pontiff. It. is said that one of the Leos substituted the toe for the right hand as the object of salute becauso his own right hand was mutilated misadventure, and 1 lie was too the stump. In Iceland.' eevereiy repressed by the. civil laws, and the consent of the lady to the salutation : does not release the male transgressor from the liability to heavy punish- : inent.' In Russia the Easter salutation is a kiss. Each member of the family salutes the other. Chance acquaintances kiss when they meet. Principals kiss their employees; the - general kisses his officers; the officers kiss 'their soldiers; the;' Czar kisses his family, retinue, court, and ' attendants, and oven his officers on ' parade, the sentinels at the palace gates, and a select party of private ; soldier's, In short Eastertide in Russia is a Carnival of "bread and cheese and kissos."—Casßell's Saturday Journal.