Man accused of kissing a customer, not his wife, was sentenced to no kissing for a year. The year was 1927.
Court Limits His Kissing for Year
Found guilty in Special Sessions Court of having kissed one of his customers, Samuel Mable, Atlantic City Insurance collector, has been placed on probation by Judge Wm. H. Smathers, with the caution that he should kiss nobody but his wife for a year.
Mable, a man of good appearance and probably on the near side of 40, was accused by Mrs. Gladys Philippi of having embraced her when he went to arrange for additional insurance.
“I have never been called upon before to decide whether or not a kiss is assault and battery,” said the Judge, “and, frankly, I don’t know what to do with him. I’ll leave it up to you,” he told Mrs. Phillippi.
“I don’t want to send him to jail, your honor,” replied the complainant, “but I don’t want him to get away with it and think he can go on doing the same to others.”
Mable denied that he had kissed Mrs. Phillippi, saying that all he did was to sympathetically pet her on the shoulder when she cried over the loss of her child, who had been dead just a year when the incident happened.
“Did you have any tears in your eyes when this man kissed you?” asked the Judge.
“No,” was the reply.
“Did you cry out or call for help?”
“No, I was too much excited. I had never had anyone do any thing like that to me before.”
The Pleasantville Press. (Pleasantville, N.J.), 22 July 1927.
