grotesque garden monsters in semi-human form, which figure also in works of the old masters, and on the handles of our urns and vases; we were hardly cognisant that these were but the types of the fully draped satyrs who so notoriously affect the seclusion and the shade of the parks and gardens in modern cities. I question if a prison is the proper place for such debased individuals. As far as I have noticed their organization, I should say an uncontrolled giving way to the sexual passion has used up a frame never very strong. A constant drain on the nervous power has produced an effect which renders its subject indifferent to consequences, provided his all-absorbing pursuit (namely, ministering to the excitement of his sexual passion) can be indulged in. Doubtless, in many instances, the brain has become affected, particularly when there exists a strong hereditary tendency to disease. This, together with deficiency of occupation, has caused many of these victims to their own feelings to make the pandering to their vile desires, and gratification of every sensuality their imagination can devise, the master occupation of life. The medical man would feel hardly justified in certifying their fitness for a lunatic asylum, as in all other respects their life is irreproachable. Observing, as these persons do, all the other usual convenances of society, there is yet a something about them which marks the thrall of some debasing pursuit. It is an error, however, to suppose they suffer from venereal affections. Your old débauchés know too well the parties they have to do with, and every precaution is taken to avoid the consequences. They are the living and suffering spectres whom, as some clever writer has observed, "Death seems to forget to strike, because he believes them already in the tomb."

I very much question, with their disordered brains, if the fear of punishment will deter such men from crime. These satyrs are so morbidly constituted, that the very chance of exposure seems to add a last incentive to their debased sensations. Has it ever occurred to others as it has to me, that by no other cause than this morbid stimulus, can we explain why these rich old débauchés should choose places of public resort for their airing-grounds, when all that is there performed could, by the aid of money and existing agencies, be done in secret? It would seem as though stolen sweets and covert joys had lost their charm; and the chance of evading the law had become the fascinating novelty. Hence the risk, the subsequent detection, and the public acquaintance with the practices of those whose penchants have been long known to the police. It is a form of aberration of intellect to which libertinage is subject; and I have drawn its picture here to show to what extent unrestrained recourse to sexual excitement will lead. Let those be warned who with active imagination enter upon a career of dissipation, and dream that at a certain spot they can stop. It is an old tale, and often told, that, although the slope of criminality that leads to great abasement be easy and gradual, it is still "le premier pas qui coute;" and he who may launch himself thereon, will acquire, as he goes, velocity and force, until at last he may not be stayed. The annals of the police show that men of great abilities and position have thus come to grief, to their own disgrace and the sad shame of their kindred.

My attention has been called to somewhat similar views, which I find Dr. Carpenter entertains with reference to "the criminal's progress." I have

extracted from the October number of the "British and Foreign MedicoChirurgical Review," the following reflections on the trial of William Palmer for poisoning William Cook with strychnine. The author says:— "The 'turf' seems very early to have had a peculiar fascination for Palmer, and to have exercised that baneful influence over him which any fascination whether for women or wine, gambling or horse-racingwill exert on those who allow their better nature to be overpowered, and their will to be led captive by it. No tyranny is more complete than the tyranny of one absorbing passion. However virtuous a man may be in every relation of life, yet if he once give himself over to any such influence, he gradually becomes so completely enthralled by it as to feel powerless for self-extrication; and thus he may be driven irresistibly at last to the commission of any crime, however monstrous, without having forfeited by any overt act the general estimation in which he is held. Such a state of subjection to a dominant impulse is really, when complete, to be accounted monomaniacal; and we believe it to be, as we urged on a former occasion, the state in which many great crimes are committed. But the criminal is justly punished, not so much for the act itself, which he scarcely had within his control, as for the antecedent course in which he had the power of checking himself. The case seems to us like that of a man in a boat that is being drawn towards a waterfall by a current, out of which a moderate exertion will enable him to project himself; not having made that exertion in time, he is carried on faster towards destruction, but still may be saved by a vigorous effort; the time for this goes by, and he is hurried along by the irresistible force of the torrent, until precipitated to his destruction in the depths beneath. We will not inquire too narrowly into the nature of the early influences under which Palmer was brought up; but enough has publicly transpired to make it obvious, that whilst they were of a kind to foster both self-indulgence and sensuality, they were but little favourable to the development of the moral sense. And if we are rightly informed, there were circumstances in his student-career which showed that no firm barrier of principle had even then to be broken down when his absorbing passion required the means of its gratification. Had the black catalogue of his imputed crimes been then exhibited to him, or had it been predicted that he would commit that single one for which he has suffered, he would doubtless have repudiated the idea with abhorrence. But such a warning would probably have had little permanent effect upon him. No habitually recurring temptations are capable of being resisted, save by a man of most determined will; they must be fled from; and Palmer was not a man to do either the one or the other. The man who began with fraud proceeded to forgery; from forgery the descent was rapid to poisoning, for the sake of preventing its exposure; and when once familiarity with the idea had been established in his mind, he seems not to have been restrained by any lingering feeling of humanity, but to have given himself over to the pleasure of successful villany, not unmingled, perhaps, with some professional interest in the course of the fatal events which he had devised. Such is one of the dreadful results of that habitual yielding to the indulgence of selfish propensities, which allows them to take full possession of the soul; and from such tyranny, yet more than from its consequences, should every one of us both pray and strive

for deliverance." Dr. Carpenter then goes on to compare the mental organization of Dove with that of Palmer:

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Here," says he, "as in the case of Palmer, we have to look upon the crime itself, not as an isolated act, but as the almost natural result of a habit long previously formed; but while the habit consisted in the one case in the fostering care with which a master-passion was cherished, until it tyrannized over a will whose strength was shown (like Samson's) even in its captivity; in the other it was the early indulgence of every selfish and malevolent impulse, which prevented the will from ever attaining its rightful sovereignty. How solemn is the lesson afforded by each of these terrible cases, especially to all concerned in the training of the young, we trust we need not point out. Both speak, though in different ways, as to the essential importance of the culture and discipline of the will, and of the early and firm implantation of those principles of right by which alone it can be safely directed."

Now I think that the medical man is the only person who can foresee, as he probably is the only friend who will dare to point out, the consequences to which a course of libertinage, such as we have above alluded to, inevitably tends. The entourage of the victim is not likely to do so, but once in the vicious circle, he must make a confidant in our profession; it is then that the judicious surgeon can step in, and in firm but feeling language he can and ought to put a stop to this career. There are moments of regret, there are periods of suffering, when a word of advice can be given; and if the true consequences of unrestrained licentiousness be urged, the easy descent from comparative happiness and respectability may be arrested, the ignominious end be averted. I admit the difficulty. I am well aware that such interference may be thought impertinent; but society calls for interference, and if the medical man do not accept he office, no one else will. His duty to his country as a citizen, to his patient as a friend, invokes him loudly, I think, to act the part of a kind adviser.

With his store of argument based upon experience, and his ample choice of opportunities, it is hard to say how often the well-intentioned professional man may not be the means of saving a fellow-creature from the poor-house, the prison, or the lunatic asylum; and of rescuing from base perversion the noble faculties lent by the Almighty for the fulfilment of his first command to Man.

APPENDIX.

A. (pp. 8, 9, 58, 59.)

WHILE the first edition was passing through the press, I had some misgivings whether or not I had depicted in too strong relief boyhood's perils; and I was anxious to learn whether my advice to parents would obtain the sanction of those who had been for years occupied in the education of youth; and the results of my own experience be borne out by that of others. I therefore forwarded proofs of pages 9 and 59 to an early friend of my own whose judgment I could trust, and who has had large opportunities of observation. The reply he so kindly sent I here publish with his sanction, embodying as it does not only his own opinions, but those of others of high character who have laboured successfully in the education of the young. It is such assistance as this, for which I beg to thank him, that cheers the author, who, in the discharge of the duty he owes to society, has to treat of many a painful subject, and depict scenes that are not congenial to his taste.

DEAR MR. ACTON,-It is indeed a difficult subject to treat wisely and usefully-but I fully believe you are right in saying that it ought to be faced; and though it is very questionable how far any publication should be placed in the hands of youth, yet good service is done if you supply parents and instructors with such information as shall enable them to speak to individual boys, according to their discretion, with a confident knowledge of those physical facts on which their admonitions are based.

You are not far wrong, I am afraid, in what we may call your statistical facts in Chapter I. of Part II., if I may judge from my experience of three great public schools and several private ones. And if I hesitate to adopt your opinion, which you speak of at p. 58 as an impugnable one, it is on the à priori grounds that it is hardly conceivable that the wise and merciful Creator should annex so fearful a penalty to indulgences which the multitude are sure to fall into-indulgences which (unlike the luxuries introduced by art) are supplied-if that is not using too strong a word, for I will not believe they are suggested-by nature itself. A priori grounds, however, in such a question, are very uncertain ones. I do not know whether the case is the same with the labouring population or with savage nations. If not, we may believe that artificial stimulus brings the upper classes, and civilized societies, under a probation which sifts them justly, and provides for the deterioration and downfall of those who do not stand the test.

I think those judge erroneously who select the public schools as the chief seat of this evil. My own experience is the other way. I used to see it practised shamelessly at a large private school I was at; and, alas! it was known and taught even at a little one, of boys all below ten years old, where I was before that. At on the other hand-which I consider far the purest of the three public schools I have been connected with— all open or avowed practice of the vice was sternly repressed by the force of public opinion; and this is more or less the case, I believe, at all of them. The superiority of attribute principally to the influence of the Monitorial system, which modern sentimentalism is trying to undermine, and which was far more firmly and effectively at work there than at another school which has been more especially selected by the assailants as their point of attack. No system, however, can prevent the secret indulgence of the vice, nor the communication of this habit from one boy to another. Parents and tutors may be well assured that, wherever a few boys are gathered together, the evil will become known, however it be regarded by individuals or by the majority; and it follows that such advice as you recommend ought not to be withheld from those who are in danger. Still I dare not urge that the instinctive feeling of the heart should be outraged or in any way overborne. A hint, a word, addressed to a young boy may often suffice to strengthen the resolutions of purity-a fervent exhortation to chastity and modesty, with a warning that he will be tempted by his fellows to evils which perhaps he is ignorant of; and an

affectionate invitation on the parents' part to confidence and confessions, which may in many cases make it necessary, or very advisable, to go much more deeply into the matter. At any rate, it is very important, as I said at first, that parents and tutors should be fortified with a knowledge far greater than they generally possess on these subjects. should have found it myself far easier to deal with cases of this sort among my pupils had I felt more secure of my point on physiological as well as religious grounds. And in each individual case, I believe, in that desperate struggle which every one has to maintain in early life who tries to rule his passions by the law of God-every one, that is, who has once let go the reins, and has to gather them up again-it would be the greatest encouragement to know that physical science confirms the dictates of Revelation, and to know why and how to look for the aid of nature in resisting an almost resistless propensity. Believe me, yours very truly,

B. (p. 14.)

I extract the following passage from an article in the "Westminster Review" of July 1850, which is universally admitted to be one of the most admirable essays upon social evils within the range of our literature :—

"Our morality will be considered by the divine as strangely lax and inconsistent, and by the men of the world, the ordinary thinker, and the mass who follow current ideas without thinking at all-as savage and absurd; nevertheless, we conceive it to harmonise with the ethics of nature and the dictates of unsophisticated sense. We look upon fornication, then (by which we always mean promiscuous intercourse with women who prostitute themselves for pay), as the worst and lowest form of sexual irregularity, the most revolting to the unpolluted feelings, the most indicative of a low nature, the most degrading and sapping to the loftier life,—

'The sin, of all, most sure to blight,-
The sin, of all, that the soul's light
Is soonest lost, extinguish'd in.'

Sexual indulgence, however guilty in its circumstances, however tragic in its results, is, when accompanied by love, a sin according to nature; its peculiarity and heinousness consist in its divorcing from all feelings of love that which was meant by nature as the last and intensest expression of passionate love; in its putting asunder that which God has joined ; in its reducing the deepest gratification of unreserved affection to a mere momentary and brutal indulgence; in its making that only one of our appetites which is redeemed from mere animality by the hallowing influence of the better and tenderer feelings with which nature has connected it as animal as the rest. It is a voluntary exchange of the passionate love of a spiritual and intellectual being for the hunger and thirst of the beast. It is a profanation of that which the higher organization of man enables him to elevate and refine. It is the introduction of filth into the pure sanctuary of the affections. We have said that fornication reduces the most fervent expression of deep and devoted human love to a mere animal gratification. But it does more than this: it not only brings man down to a level with the brutes, but it has one feature which places him far, far below them. Sexual connexion with them is the simple indulgence of a natural desire mutually felt; in the case of human prostitution, it is in many, probably in most, instances a brutal desire on the one side only, and a reluctant and loathing submission, purchased by money, on the other. Among cattle the sexes meet by common instinct and a common will; it is reserved for the human animal to treat the female as a mere victim to his lust."

C. (p. 18.)

It was far from my intention, when I commenced this work, to put myself forward as a religious adviser, but I so frequently receive painful letters from young men, seeking advice how to curb the lust of the flesh, that I was induced to seek out the views entertained upon the subject by the executive of the Established Church. I found, on application to competent persons, that our Church has not deemed it expedient to be diffuse upon the observance of the Seventh Commandment. I was referred, indeed, by one worthy divine to the head "of