cret archives of many a
Police Bureau could publish frightful information. But not among men
only, among women also have the unnatural practices of old Greece come
up again with force. Lesbian love, or Sapphism, is said to be quite
general among married women in Paris; according to Taxal,[121] it is
enormously in practice among the prominent ladies of that city. In
Berlin, one-fourth of the prostitutes are said to practice "tribady;"
but also in the circles of our leading dames there are not wanting
disciples of Sappho. Still another unnatural gratification of the sexual
instinct manifests itself in the violation of children, a practice that
has increased greatly during the last thirty years. In France, during
1851-1875, 17,656 cases of this nature were tried. The colossal number
of these crimes in France is intimately connected with the two-child
system, and with the abstinence of husbands towards their wives. To the
German population also we find people recommending Malthusianism,
without stopping to think what the sequels will be. The so-called
"liberal professions," to whom belong mainly the members of the upper
classes, furnish in Germany about 5.6 per cent. of the ordinary
criminals, but they furnish 13 per cent. of the criminals indicted for
violation of children; and this latter percentage would be still higher
were there not in those circles ample means to screen the criminals, so
that, probably, the majority of cases remain undiscovered. The
revelations made in the eighties by the "Pall Mall Gazette" on the
violation of children in England, are still fresh in the public memory.

The moral progress of this our best of all possible worlds is recorded
in the below tables for England, the "leading country in civilization."
In England there were:--

Immoral Acts Deaths from
Year. of Violence. Syphilis. Insane.
1861 280 1,345 39,647
1871 315 1,995 56,755
1881 370 2,334 73,113
1882 466 2,478 74,842
1883 390 ... 76,765
1884 510 ... ...
Increase
since 1861 82 per cent. 84 per cent. 98 per cent.

A frightful increase this is of the phenomena that point to the rising
physical and moral ruin of English society.

The best statistical rec