In England it is seldom that anyone cares to investigate these phenomena, though, they certainly exist.  They have been more thoroughly studied elsewhere.  Thus, in Rome, Niceforo, who studied various aspects of the lives of the working classes, succeeded in obtaining much precise information concerning the manners and customs of the young girls in dressmaking and tailoring work-rooms.  He remarks that few of those who see the “virtuous daughters of the people,” often not more than 12 years old, walking along the streets with the dressmaker’s box under their arm, modestly bent head and virginal air, realize the intense sexual preoccupations often underlying these appearances.  In the work-rooms the conversation perpetually revolves around sexual subjects in the absence of the mistress or forewoman, and even in her presence the slang that prevails in the work-rooms leads to dialogues with a double meaning.  A state of sexual excitement is thus aroused which sometimes relieves itself mentally by psychic onanism, sometimes by some form of masturbation; one girl admitted to Niceforo that by allowing her thoughts to dwell on the subject while at work she sometimes produced physical sexual excitement as often as four times a day.  (See also vol. i of these Studies, “Auto-erotism.”) Sometimes, however, a vague kind of homosexuality is produced, the girls, excited by their own thoughts and their conversation, being still further excited by contact with each other.  “In summer, in one work-room, some of the girls wear no drawers, and they unbutton their bodices, and work with crossed legs, more or less uncovered.  In this position, the girls draw near and inspect one another; some boast of their white legs, and, then the petticoats are raised altogether for more careful comparison.  Many enjoy this inspection of nudity, and experience real sexual pleasure.  From midday till 2 P.M., during the hours of greatest heat, when all are in this condition, and the mistress, in her chemise (and sometimes, with no shame at the workers’ presence, even without it), falls asleep on the sofa, all the girls, without one exception, masturbate themselves.  The heat seems to sharpen their desires and morbidly arouse all their senses.  The voluptuous emotions, restrained during the rest of the day, break out with irresistible force; stimulated by the spectacle of each other’s nakedness, some place their legs together and thus heighten the spasm by the illusion of contact with a man.”  In this way they reach mutual masturbation.  “It is noteworthy, however,” Niceforo points out, “that these couples for mutual masturbation are never Lesbian couples.  Tribadism is altogether absent from the factories and work-rooms.”  He even believes that it does not exist among girls of the working class.  He further describes how, in another work-room, during the hot hours of the day in summer, when no work is done, some of the girls retire into the fitting-room, and,