no more; while, so long as no public offense is given, there should be no penalty or obloquy whatever attached to sexual acts committed with full consent between mature persons.  These acts may or may not be wrong and immoral, just as sexual acts between mature persons of different sexes may or may not be wrong or immoral.  But in neither case has the law any concern; and public opinion should make no distinction between the two.  It is in the highest degree important that it should be clearly understood that we want no relaxation of moral obligations.  At present we suffer an inconceivably cruel wrong.”

We have always to remember, and there is, indeed, no possibility of forgetting, that the question of homosexuality is a social question.  Within certain limits, the gratification of the normal sexual impulse, even outside marriage, arouses no general or profound indignation; and is regarded as a private matter; rightly or wrongly, the gratification of the homosexual impulse is regarded as a public matter.  This attitude is more or less exactly reflected in the law.  Thus it happens that whenever a man is openly detected in a homosexual act, however exemplary his life may previously have been, however admirable it may still be in all other relations, every ordinary normal citizen, however licentious and pleasure-loving his own life may be, feels it a moral duty to regard the offender as hopelessly damned and to help in hounding him out of society.  At very brief intervals cases occur, and without reaching the newspapers are more or less widely known, in which distinguished men in various fields, not seldom clergymen, suddenly disappear from the country or commit suicide in consequence of some such exposure or the threat of it.  It is probable that many obscure tragedies could find their explanation in a homosexual cause.

Some of the various tragic ways in which homosexual passions are revealed to society may be illustrated by the following communication from a correspondent, not himself inverted, who here narrates cases that came under his observation in various parts of the United States.  The cases referred to will be known to many, but I have disguised the names of persons and places:—­

“At the age of 14 I was a chorister at ——­ church, whose choirmaster, an Englishman named M.W.M., was an accomplished man, seemingly a perfect gentleman, and a devout churchman.  He never seemed to care for the society of ladies, never mingled much with the men, but sought companionship with the choristers of my age.  He frequently visited at the homes of his favorites, to tea, and when he asked the parents’ consent for George’s or Frank’s company on an excursion or to the theater, and then to spend the night with him, such request was invariably granted.  I shall ever remember my first night with him; he began by fondling and caressing me, quieting my alarm by assurances of not hurting me, and after invoking