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MISCELLANEOUS.
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offenses punished with death. Many of these are not
now reckoned offenses, and for most of the others the
punishment is modified. I see no reason for punishing
a man for an act which begins and ends with himself,
or with a consenting party. Moreover, such laws are
useless, as not one case in a thousand, from its very
nature, can ever be brought to justice.
Amativeness, excited by false modes of living, and
made rampant by social repressions, runs into many
Of these, masturbation, or self-
morbid expressions.
pollution, is the most common and the most destructive.
It prevails to about an equal extent in both- sexes, and
probably not more than one person in ten, of either sex,
entirely escapes it. Many of the noblest, loveliest, and
purest are wrecked by this habit, the result of parental
sensuality and unnatural modes of life.
or Sodomy, the intercourse of one male with another,
has been practiced from the remotest ages, and is still
so common in Eastern and tropical countries, as not to
excite remark. It is also practiced among prisoners,
soldiers, and sailors, all of whom are subject to false
conditions. It also occurs from the mere choice of a
morbid lust, with men who have every opportunity for
with the other sex. This was so common
gratification
in classic times, that Voltaire has thought it necessary
to defend Solon, Plutarch, and even Socrates, from the
charge of having recommended or defended it. It is
even called Socratic love, as a similar passion of females
for each other, and their mutual gratification of each
other's desires is called Sapphic love, from Sappho, who
has celebrated this not unfrequent perversion
pretty and passionate verses.
in some