Kiss v. Shake

Because Americans, Englishmen, Germans, Dutchmen, Swedes, Lithuanians, Poles, Danes, Armenians, Serbians, Greeks, Estonians, Syrians, Letts, Icelanders, Norwegians and especially the Japanese think it is effeminate, many a modern Frenchman has abandoned the ancient & honorable Gallic custom of greeting friends with a resounding kiss on the cheek or jaw. So widespread has become the custom of shaking hands in France that last week the august L Academic de Medecine was asked for an opinion. Weightily the Academic considered, then over the voluble opposition of a youthful minority delivered these decisions: 1) the country man's hands carry fewer germs than the city man's, but 2) more germs change carriers during a handclasp than during a perfunctory peck of the lips; hence 3) the handshake is more dangerous than the kiss.

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