Page:The art of kissing (IA artofkissing987wood).djvu/45

 the promiscuous kissers. The antiquity of this custom is vouched for by Washington Irving, in his entertaining Diedrich Knickerbocker's History of New York. In the broad old days the good burghers of New Amsterdam, with their wives and daughters, dressed themselves in all their finery, and repaired to the governor's house, where the chief official went through the rite of kissing all the women a happy new year. The head usher would follow suit:

The same usher later was the first to require a kiss from all women who passed Kissing Bridge, on the old highway that led to the troubled water of Hellgate. The custom of New Year kissing in New York has survived with undiminished fervor to today. At proper Watch Parties, gathered to watch the old year out and the new year in, at the stroke of midnight it is expected of every man present that he shall offer the proper osculatory salute to every woman present. When the watch party takes place in one of the prominent restaurants of the Tenderloin district, the results are piquantly surprising. You may go away with the memory of the most entrancing kiss you ever encountered, given you by an anonymous pair of lips whom you may never meet again. The custom is a good one, and is spreading to other parts of the country.

And Christmas brings in the mistletoe. The