Kissing The Book

Kissing the book, kissing the New Testament on taking an oath (see that title). This practice, which has of late years been much objected to on sanitary grounds, is peculiar to English Courts, and even in them has not been in use for much more than 150 years; the original practice having been for the witness only to place his hand on the New Testament in order to take the 'corporal oath' (see that title, and see Best on Evidence, 9th Edn., at p. 147).

The practice of kissing the thumb, or some part of the Book instead of the Book itself, was emphatically condemned by the late Mr. Justice Byrne at the close of the Michaelmas sittings in 1901 (see Times for Dec. 23), who observed that there was no excuse whatever for a witness refraining from kissing the Book, when by taking advantage of the Oaths Act to swear by uplifted hand he could get rid of the obligation to swear in the ordinary form. The practice of kissing the thumb only, though followed by many to escape infection, is perhaps followed by more from a notion that them oral obligation to keep the oath taken is extinguished, and that the offence of perjury is not committed. The whole practice of taking an oath has now been altered by the (English) Oaths Act, 1909. See OATH.