Curiosities of Street Literature. Various
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for the sake of a single glorious smack. Go, then, and feast till you fatten on forfeited kisses; but be assured that, although they may be attended with some little sport and amusement, they are just as destitute of real ecstacy as a fox’s back is of fur in the month of June, or an oyster of fine flavour in August. True bliss only attends the warm kiss of fervent love. When a young man presses the girl that he sincerely loves to his bosom—when heart meets heart—when soul mingles with soul—and when lips meet lips—oh! then come exquisite touches of tenderness!—then he cannot help feeling a sort of furziness all over!—and she must unquestionably feel as though she were ready to pin-feather at the moment. Such, my dear, are the delightful, but indescribable sensations attending the kiss of pure and unadulterated love. But he that kisses only to deceive and seduce, imbibes a poison at the time, which rankles in his bosom, and induces more or less of grief and mortification, according to the injury inflicted. I hold him a very Judas at best; and if he were to go straightway and hang himself, society would reckon his loss as an unlooked for and fortunate gain. My dear, as for me, I don’t dive very deeply into miscellaneous kissing, and consequently kiss but few; but when I do kiss, an explosion takes place which must convince all within hearing that it originates from the heart, and is meant in earnest. There was a time, in my schoolboy days, when I could extract the sweets of a kiss as calmly, composedly, and I may say as coldly as a bee sucks the honey from a hollyhock; but now I never undertake the business of bussing unless I go into it with a heart heated in the blaze of enthusiasm. A mother kisses her child; true lovers do the same to one another, and no evil consequences ensue; doves bill and coo, and they know no more about the practised arts of love than a man knows when he goes to sleep; but, oh! this kissing to gain some mean, mercenary, or unlawful end, ought never to be countenanced. To kiss in jest, as is often practised by chaps among the girls, is productive of no absolute harm or actual good yet the young men love to indulge in it; and so long as the amusement is innocent in itself, I have no objections to their gratifying their naughty but wicked propensities to their heart’s content. But they must be careful whom they kiss and how they kiss. Some girls will undergo the pleasurable punishment as quietly as a good-natured child submits to baptism by sprinkling—some twist and squirm like an eel while being skinned, and either return a smart slap in the face, or exercise no other defence by merely saying “Why ain’t you ashamed!” And then again, there are others whom it is as dangerous to attempt to kiss as it would be to attempt to break open the trunk of an elephant. Look out for this latter sort, for they have teeth like tigers and claws like a wild cat’s, and you must keep a respectful distance, or pay dearly for your rashness. Married men may greet one another with a holy kiss, but don’t kiss each other’s wives, lest the green-eyed monster haunt the blooming bowers of matrimony, and every beautiful blossom of connubial bliss be blighted in the frost-bringing breeze of jealousy. I want you, my dear, to kiss and get married; and then devote your time to the study of morality and money-making. Then let your home be provided with such comforts and necessaries as piety, pickles, potatoes, pots and kettles, brushes, brooms, benevolence, bread, charity, cheese, crackers, faith, flour, affection, cider, sincerity, onions, integrity, vinegar, virtue, wine, and wisdom. Have all these always on hand, and happiness will be with you. Eat moderately, go about business after breakfast, lounge a little after dinner, chat after tea, and kiss after quarrelling; and all the joy, the peace and the bliss the earth can afford shall be yours, till the grave closes over you, and your spirit is borne to a brighter and happier world. So may it be.
From yours—W. S.
J. Catnach, Printer, London.
WONDERFUL, JUST, & TERRIBLE JUDGMENT
ON A
BLASPHEMER,
As manifested to Mr. Louis, a Farmer, between Brighton and Hastings, who, while in the act of blaspheming, was struck motionless, in which state he remained six weeks, with his account of the Horrors he endured while in his death-like Trance.
The following startling intelligence was received in London a few weeks ago (as many thousands can remember), from a very pious and Christian lady named Thompson, residing at a Training College in the vicinity of Brighton, Sussex, and which may be said to be one of the most awful visitations that ever befel any person. At a village between Brighton and Hastings, the farmers had been grumbling about the weather. A lady was passing a field in which Mr. Louis, a farmer, was standing, remarked that his corn looked nice. “Yes,” he replid, “it would look nice, if God Almighty would sleep for six weeks,” and directly the man became stiff, and has remained in that position until Tuesday last, when, amidst a violent storm of wind and rain, he recovered the use of his faculties. It appears that the unfortunate man’s wife and friends had been assiduously watching him since August the 14th, and early on Tuesday morning, September the 25th, whilst a violent storm of wind and rain was raging, his limbs were observed to lose their rigid appearance, and his wife immediately ran to him, when, in a few moments he opened his eyes, looked around, and clasping his hands together, raised his eyes to Heaven, and exclaimed, “My God! my God; what have I done?” and immediately fell to the earth in a swoon. They raised him from the ground, and applied restoratives to him, and in a short time had the pleasure of seeing him come too, when they conveyed him home and put him to bed, and we are happy to say under the kind attention of his wife he rapidly recovered.
The unfortunate man states that when he went off in his death-like trance he had, for the first few days a perfect knowledge of all that was passing around him, and, oh! it was impossible to describe the horrible anguish that he experienced at the thought of standing in that position for ever (he says he never expected to be relieved from his awful position), as a warning to the unrighteous wicked blasphemer; then to hear the remarks of some of his Christian friends, many of whom had tried to persuade him to alter his evil course of life, but whom he had treated with scorn, was doubly terribly horrible. He says, that after he went off in a stupor, and had lost his sense and feeling, as far as regards this earth, he thought he was carried along by some unseen power, and alighted in a dark dismal barren looking region, where the smell of brimstone was almost suffocating, and the horrible noises that surrounded him was enough to drive any person mad. He was now carried along by the same unseen power till he came to a dark narrow passage, at the end of which a sight the most horrible met his view. There was an immense abyss in the earth which the eye could not command, which was filled with an immense number of human forms, all writhing and twisting amidst the horrors of liquid fire.
Now and then a troop of young demons could be seen putting some miserable wretch to horrible torture by tossing him about in the flames with forks, or picking the skin and toe nails from his body; the cries and shrieks of the miserable wretches were so heartrendering that he fell down in a swoon, and on coming to himself, he thought he was in a room at home, with a bible in his hand, when an angel appeared to him, and said, “What you have seen is the reward of unrighteousness and wicked blasphemers, and other sinners, and may this be a warning to you to alter your evil course.” He held a blazing torch in one hand, and a flaming torch in the other, and shook them as he departed. The unfortunate man shortly after began to return to a conscious state, and came to himself, as we have before stated.
He has been visited by a number of religious people, and is quite an altered man. He reads his bible, and is extremely happy in the company of an elderly Divine, who reads and explains the holy book to him. He has expressed himself ready to give lectures when he has thoroughly recovered.
It is a shocking thing when we come to contemplate on it, that a man, who was in an independant station of life, should, for the sake of gaining a few more pounds out of an acre or two of land, make use of such an impious expression. It is not as if he would give any share of the abundance to the poor and needy, but it was a selfish sordid spirit that the man possessed, prompted by the workings of the evil one; and, now we can see, that the Almighty, although invisible to the human eye can see and hear, and know our most inmost thoughts, and punishes us at a moment when we least expect it, and in a manner