ke dwellings,--when the notch in a tree and its rough
bark formed our couch; but in these days of plush-cushioned pews and
opera-seats, cosy office-chairs, car-seats, and upholstered furniture or
polished-oak seats, it serves no intelligent purpose.

Emasculation has never been looked upon with favor by its victim, and it
would be but natural to suppose that man would take every precaution
against the accidental occurrence of such an undesired condition. The
writer well remembers that, in his "Tom Sawyer" days on the banks of the
upper Mississippi, in the happy days of the crack rafting crews, before
the introduction of the towage steamer, when the river towns were more
or less terrorized by wild gangs of these men, some of whom were always
fighting and quarreling and drinking when not at work. In the lot there
was one man with a great reputation at a rough-and-tumble fight. His
main hold was that he generally tried to emasculate his adversary by
destroying the physiological condition of the testicle. The man was not
a large or powerful man, nor was he a great boxer or wrestler, but this
reputation made him feared by all the bullies on the river. The report
that not a few who had tackled him had subsequently been of no value,
either as fornicators or fecundators, or had to be castrated on account
of the resulting testicular degeneration, seemed in no way to encourage
any one to wish to meet him in a personal encounter. It would seem as if
the desire to avoid such an accident--provided persons knew the dangers
that lurk in a prepuce--would induce many to submit to circumcision.
That many more do not do so can only be attributed to the general human
wish to escape a less present evil for a greater unknown one, being
evidently deterred by the prospective pain that must be suffered
immediately.

There is a question that should interest man above that of the simple
loss of penis. It appears that there is a powerful moral effect that
follows this loss, as might, in the majority, be anticipated. According
to the experience of Civiale, many who have lost the penis, through
amputation for disease or through disease itself, end in suicide. He
mentions particularly a patient at the Charite who had lost his penis,
who, finding no other means to take himself off, saved up sufficient
opium, from that given him to calm his pains, to take all at one dose
and commit suicide. In the London _Lancet_ for March 27, 1886, there is
reported