he labor was of about eighteen hours' duration, and laceration was
avoided. He also speaks of a mulatto girl, born in 1848, who began to
menstruate at eleven years and nine months, and gave birth to a female
child before she reached thirteen, and bore a second child when
fourteen years and seven months old. The child's father was a white boy
of seventeen.

The following are some Indian statistics: 1 pregnancy at ten, 6 at
eleven, 2 at eighteen, 1 at nineteen. Chevers speaks of a mother at ten
and others at eleven and twelve; and Green, at Dacca, performed
craniotomy upon the fetus of a girl of twelve. Wilson gives an account
of a girl thirteen years old, who gave birth to a full-grown female
child after three hours' labor. She made a speedy convalescence, but
the child died four weeks afterward from bad nursing. The lad who
acknowledged paternity was nineteen years old. King reports a
well-verified case of confinement in a girl of eleven. Both the mother
and child did well.

Robertson of Manchester describes a girl, working in a cotton factory,
who was a mother at twelve; de La Motte mentions pregnancy before
twelve; Kilpatrick in a negress, at eleven years and six months; Fox,
at twelve; Hall, at twelve; Kinney, at twelve years, ten months, and
sixteen days; Herrick, at thirteen years and nine months; Murillo, at
thirteen years; Philippart, at fourteen years; Stallcup, at eleven
years and nine months; Stoakley, at thirteen years; Walker, at the age
of twelve years and eight months; another case, at twelve years and six
months; and Williams, at eleven.

An editorial article in the Indian Medical Gazette of Sept., 1890,
says:--

"The appearance of menstruation is held by the great majority of
natives of India to be evidence and proof of marriageability, but among
the Hindu community it is considered disgraceful that a girl should
remain unmarried until this function is established. The consequence
is that girls are married at the age of nine or ten years, but it is
understood or professed that the consummation of the marriage is
delayed until after the first menstrual period. There is, however, too
much reason to believe that the earlier ceremony is very frequently,
perhaps commonly, taken to warrant resort to sexual intercourse before
the menstrual flux has occurred: it may be accepted as true that
premenstrual copulation is largely practised under the cover of
marriage in this country.

"From this practice it