what the hell is this

> GOOD OLD TIMES IN ENGLAND
> Hockney Tuesday, When Tutti Men Kiss Women of Hungerford.
> 
> Just when England is beginning to pride. itself on its progress of modernity, Hungerford, on the borders of Berkshire and Wiltshire, slips back into the centuries because it is Hockney Tuesday.
> 
> Unless you have lived through Hockney Tuesday you can have no conception of what it means. It needs strong nerves. and a stronger constitution thoroughly to enter into the spirit of ancient times.
> 
> At 8 o'clock the town crier, in gray and scarlet, with brass buttons, comes out of the town hall and blows three notes on the ancient horn given by John o' Gaunt, and that is the signal for two tutti men to emerge from the constable's house with staffs tipped with flowers-daffodils, primroses and tulips surmounted by an orange.
> 
> It is their business to go forth and kiss the damsels of the town, irrespective of age or beauty, according to custom.
> 
> James Blake and Anthony Bowsher were the tutti men today. Mr. Blake is sixty years old. Mr. Bowsher is younger, but both of them kissed vigorously from 8 o'clock until 7 in the evening, with a break for dinner.
> 
> Tradition decrees that they shall be liberal with oranges and pennies. Therefore having kissed a maid they gave her an orange as a solace, and they hurled oranges among the crowd of urchins who followed them about all day, It was a perfect orgy of kissing. They knocked at doors, and little, high-pitched shrieks floated out into the street, showing how nobly the tutti men were doing their duty.
> 
> They went to the workhouse and kissed all the old ladies, including Ann Benson, who is ninety-nine years old; they went to the laundry, with their floral staffs. Up and down for five miles they wandered, from house to house, kissing, kissing, kissing, until at the time of the time of the[sic.] sunset there were no more left to kiss.
> 
> They wanted to start again, but that is against the ancient laws.
> 
> Meanwhile, during these goings on, the Hocktide court had been sitting, doing the serious business of the year, appointing a constable, a port reeve, an ale taster and what not, and at the end of the [sic.]entire court adjourned to the Three Swans for church-warden pipes and bowls of smoking punch.
> 
> Everyone agreed that "they were good old times."-London Daily Express