quently happens that during the
hottest hours of the day, between twelve and two, when the mistress or
forewoman is asleep, all the girls without exception give themselves up to
masturbation.[297] In France a country _cure_ assured Debreyne that among
the little girls who come up for their first communion, 11 out of 12 were
given to masturbation.[298] The medical officer of a Prussian reformatory
told Rohleder that nearly all the inmates over the age of puberty
masturbated. Stanley Hall knew a reform school in America where
masturbation was practiced without exception, and he who could practice
it oftenest was regarded with hero-worship.[299] Ferriani, who has made an
elaborate study of youthful criminality in Italy, states that even if all
boys and girls among the general population do not masturbate, it is
certainly so among those who have a tendency to crime. Among 458 adult
male criminals, Marro (as he states in his _Caratteri dei Delinquenti_)
found that only 72 denied masturbation, while 386 had practiced it from an
early age, 140 of them before the age of thirteen. Among 30 criminal women
Moraglia found that 24 acknowledged the practice, at all events in early
youth (8 of them before the age of 10, a precocity accompanied by average
precocity in menstruation), while he suspected that most of the remainder
were not unfamiliar with the practice. Among prostitutes of whatever class
or position Moraglia found masturbation (though it must be pointed out
that he does not appear to distinguish masturbation very clearly from
homosexual practices) to be universal; in one group of 50 prostitutes
everyone had practiced masturbation at some period; 28 began between the
ages of 6 and 11; 19, between 12 and 14, the most usual period--a
precocious one--of commencing puberty; the remaining 3 at 15 and 16; the
average age of commencing masturbation, it may be added, was 11, while
that of the first sexual intercourse was 15.[300] In a larger group of 180
prostitutes, belonging to Genoa, Turin, Venice, etc., and among 23
"elegant cocottes," of Italian and foreign origin, Moraglia obtained the
same results; everyone admitted masturbation, and not less than 113
preferred masturbation, either solitary or mutual, to normal coitus. Among
the insane, as among idiots, masturbation is somewhat more common among
males, according to Blandford, in England, as also it is in Germany,
according to Naecke,[301] while Venturi, in Italy, has found it