Judge — July 10, 1920 — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

— y Henwes Patae Putting the Buss Out of Business By Perriton Maxweut OR the duration of the Silly Season, why not eliminate the kiss from all plays that have st vived the hot weath Is it, after all ential that at the moment you are reaching under your orchestra chair for your hat, the long-estranged lovers should embrace and begin to indulge in an oscula tory exhibition just to denote the end of the s' Cannot something be left to the imagination? Is there not, to come right down to brass tacks, something not y trite but a bit shameless in this business of kissing in public? Does any one believe that the leading man and the beautiful herowine get any pleasure out of the contact of their lip rouge? We all know that the most impassioned of stage lovers kisses the curtain down only because his salary depends upon it. When he takes the stout old star to his starched or beflanneled bosom and rubber-stamps a sticky smack on her carmined facial petals we know there is no joy in the act for cither of the impacting parties. They are hired to do it and it is a downright debasing way of earning one’s livelihood. Any woman must come to loathe the man who, cight times a week, grabs her head in his hot hands and mouthes her grease-painted countenance. It is marvelous that so few dressing-room murders are on the police blotters. Viewed from its purely physical aspect kissing is not (on the word of those who have made a profound study of the science) a wholly pleasant experience. It smacks (if one may be a bit waggish about so serious a matter) of asphyxiation when too vehemently indulged in. Something of the effect of a sudden blow on the Adam's apple, a punch in the abdomen or a shadbone lodged in the epiglottis results when the kissing is protracted. The soul kiss, so prevalent on the stage, besides being dangerous to those sitting in on the game, is only a little less alluring than a shampoo or a little more endurable than tonsillitis. And yet people on and off the stage go to great lengths and endure incredible hardships tor the chance to interrupt their respiration with long-drawn kisses. Men risk life and limb to bandy lip caresses with some other fellow’s wife—who may later prove herself shrew- ish, slovenly and sinister. Hours that might be devoted to the acquisition of money or a new language are wasted confiding ‘ass- and ch- silly exchange of lip service betwee! sh female maturity. rans of the bre in the youth and vamy gho ers and the scarred v of-promise courts return to the inane sport much gusto as if it were a game of golf or a good dinner. Experience is no teacher. One might forgive them if this face-to-face ion had not gotten into the drama permanently and made it imperative that the last act should finish with a clutch and an amorous catcl catch-can. It is not, of course, casy to offer a substitute for kiss- in at on the back, a pinching of the chee i ging of the ear do not seem to measure up to what one feels an audience would most readily accept, even when preoccupied with exhuming its wraps and headgear. But there must be a way out of this slough of osculatory despond. The players themselves are heartily tired of h on schedule and for pay. Out of the depths of the perplexing problem one lit- tle ray of hope glimmers forth—why not rub noses? A large tribe of African natives have been doing this sort of thing for years and with great success. There is much to be said in its favor—very little against it; except perhaps in extremely humid weather. Perhaps its chief claim to adoption in amorous scenes on the stage, is the fact that so many of our best lovers of both sexes are already amply provided by nature with pro- bosci beautifully adapted to the new idea. On second thought, nose rubbing is itself too near akin to kissing to be acceptable as a replacement by either actors or auditors. We must continue to search for an inexpensive and efficient substitute for the use of fatuous participants in mimic love-making—something that will enable them to keep their distance without cooling their ardor—something like tennis or tele- phoning. Perhaps, like squaring the circle or unscram- bling omelets, it can’t be done; and it may be just as well if the impossible is not attempted. Let the amor- ous mimes go on with their noisy osculation; what does it matter, after all, if only we can leave the theatre before the well-known hug to catch the 11:37 and our straw Kelly has escaped demolition at the feet of the man in the seat behind us? h as