From the medical point of view there is danger in kissing. The spread of diphtheria, it is said, is largely due to the practice of kissing children. It is hard to conceive of any mode of propagation more directly suited to the spread of the infection or more general in its operation. It stands to diphtheria in about the same relation that promiscuous hand-shaking formerly did to the itch. A physician in explaining to a third party the warning he gave his wife not to let the children kiss any one, said: “I tell you it wasn’t Judas alone who betrayed with a kiss. Hundreds of lovely, blooming children are kissed into their graves every year. There is death in a kiss. The beloved and lamented Princess Alice, of Hesse, took diphtheria from the kiss of her child, and followed it to the grave. Diphtheria, malaria, scarlet fever, blood poison, death lurk in the kisses!” There are superstitions about kissing. There is a man living at Luray, Virginia, who became convinced when young that kissing was wicked because Christ was betrayed with a kiss. He resolved never to kiss anybody. He has been married twenty years and is the father of eleven children, but has never kissed his wife or one of his offspring. Among the quaint customs wherein kissing is involved is the surprisal of any person asleep by one of the opposite sex. In such a situation the drowsy party may be kissed with impunity, and must, in addition, pay the saluting party the forfeit of a pair of gloves. St. Valentine has also a good deal of kissing to answer for. The osculatory customs of this holiday are capitally and graphically illustrated by Sir Walter Scott in “The Fair Maid of Perth,” where the heroine kisses her stalwart lover, Harry, on St. Valentine’s morning, and they afterwards exchange their betrothal gifts prepared on such occasions with much forethought and circumspection as to their suitability and appropriateness. It was the custom among the Romans to give the dying a last kiss, in order, as they thought, to catch the parting breath. Spenser, in his pastoral elegy on the death of Sir Philip Sidney, mentions it as a circumstance which renders the loss of his illustrious friend more to be lamented, that no one was nigh to close his eyelids “and kiss his lips.” A little after he notices the “dearest love” of the deceased weeping over him. She, with sunset kisses, sucked the wasting breath Out of his lips, like lilies pale and soft. When Lord Nelson was dying on board his flagship, he took leave of his faithful friend, Hardy, by kissing him. “Kiss me, Hardy!” he said, and these were the last words he uttered. And so, too, Sir Walter Scott, when dying, kissed Lockhart, saying, “Be good, my dear! be good.”