Page 16 - BBC History - September 2017

History now / Backgrounder
OLD NEWS
Kissing in public
Portsmouth Evening News
17 December 1902
lthough the British are frequently
Aaccused of being prudish, it’s our
American cousins who were often the
most worried about society falling into
disarray. It might surprise you to learn
that many states in the USA used to
outlaw kissing in public, right into the
20th century. In 1902, the Portsmouth
Evening News reported that the entire
country was about to attempt to abolish
all public kissing, and introduce a fine of
five dollars for anyone caught indulging
in the practice. Of course, this was met
with widespread disapproval and a
campaign to repeal the old Puritan ‘blue
laws’ of Massachusetts.
The campaign was aided by a recent
case that had caused much amusement
and indignation in Boston, when a
prominent citizen had been arrested for
kissing his wife in the street. But the USA
was not alone in its kissing prohibition.
Italy’s Milan had similar laws against
kisses in public places and, the Ports-
mouth Evening News reported, a pair of
perfectly respectable lovers had recently
been hauled before the magistrate and
fined 12 shillings for kissing in the park.
This led the paper to joke that a similar
law imposed in England would make
income tax unnecessary! ILLUSTRATION BY BEN JONES compared it to ink, soot, mud and
News story sourced from britishnewspaperar- excrement. But they believed it had
chive.co.uk and rediscovered by Fern Riddell.
Fern regularly appears on BBC
Radio 3’s Free Thinking
16
PAST NOTES
COFFEE
A 1960s promotional image for Nescafé, the first freeze-dried instant coffee
As our love a!air with co!ee shows no sign of abating,
Julian Humphrys drinks in its history
Where does the word coffee men with similar interests, occupa-
come from? tions or political viewpoints. Lloyd’s of
From the Turkish ‘kahveh’, itself a London insurance market, for example,
version of ‘qahwah’, originally an had its origins in Edward Lloyd’s
Arabic word for a type of wine. Coffee Coffee House on Lombard Street,
is believed to have reached Arabia where merchants, shippers and ship
from Africa in the 15th century. By the insurance underwriters would meet.
16th century it had spread to Persia,
Were these coffee houses
Egypt, Syria and Turkey, and was
universally popular?
probably first introduced to Europe
by Venetian traders at the end of They certainly weren’t with Charles II.
that century. The potentially subversive nature of
the discussions being held in some of
Why did people drink it? London’s coffee houses led Charles
Certainly not for the taste. Coffee to make an unsuccessful attempt to
drinkers in the 18th century routinely
suppress them in 1675.
When did instant coffee appear
on the scene?
medicinal qualities and valued the New Zealander David Strang
fact that, unlike ale or spirits, it gave patented instant coffee in 1890. Then,
you a mental boost.
in 1909, George Washington, a British
Where did the English drink it? chemist in Guatemala, noticed
Primarily in coffee houses. The first powdery condensation forming on his
ones opened in Oxford and London coffee carafe. Three years later, after
in the early 1650s. These new extensive experimentation, he
coffee houses became fashionable launched the world’s first mass-pro-
places for men (women were duced instant coffee which he called
excluded) to meet, do business, Red E Coffee. In 1938 the Nestlé
discuss the news of the day and Corporation introduced a freeze-
exchange ideas. They soon gained dried coffee which it had developed
ADVERTISING ARCHIVES
the nickname of ‘penny universities’, at the behest of the Brazilian
as that was the price of a cup of government to help preserve the
coffee. Each coffee house tended to country’s coffee harvest surplus.
have a particular clientele, attracting Its name? Nescafé.
BBC History Magazine