Playful Kiss Doesn't Count

February 1914

Editor's Daughter Loses $5,000 Damage Suit Against Brookfield, Missouri, Pastor

Brookfield, Mo. — After deliberating eight and one half hours the jury in the case of Harriet C. Myers against the Rev. F. C. Atwood for $5,000 damages on the charge of forcibly kissing her, returned a verdict in the defendant's favor.

The charge made by Miss Myers, who is a daughter of Harry C. Myers, editor of the Linn County Budget, was first made public last November, although the alleged osculatory demonstration was said to have taken place more than a year before. Rev. Atwood, shortly after the charge was made, admitted from the pulpit that be kissed Miss Myers "on the side of her head, above the ear." He did this, he said, as the result of a "playful impulse."