One of the most serious objections to the legal recognition of private “gross indecency” is the obvious fact that only in the rarest cases can such indecency become known to the police, and we thus perpetrate what is very much like a legal farce.  “The breaking of few laws,” as Moll truly observes, regarding the German law, “so often goes unpunished as of this.”  It is the same in England, as is amply evidenced by the fact that, of the English sexual inverts, whose histories I have obtained, not one, so far as I am aware, has ever appeared in a police-court on this charge.

It may further be pointed out that legislation against homosexuality has no clear effect either in diminishing or increasing its prevalence.  This must necessarily be so as regards the kernel of the homosexual group, if we are to regard a considerable proportion of cases as congenital.  In France homosexuality per se has been untouched by the law for a century; yet it abounds, chiefly, it seems, among the lowest in the community; although the law is silent, social feeling is strong, and when—­as has been the case in one instance—­a man of undoubted genius has his name associated with this perversion it becomes difficult or impossible for the admirers of his work to associate with him personally; very few cases of homosexuality have been recorded in France among the more intelligent classes; the literature of homosexuality is there little more than the literature of male prostitution, as described by police-officials, and as carried on largely for the benefit of foreigners.  In Germany and Austria, where the law against homosexuality is severe, it abounds also, perhaps to a much greater extent than in France;[272] it certainly asserts itself more vigorously; a far greater number of cases have been recorded than in any other country, and the German literature of homosexuality is very extensive, often issued in popular form, and sometimes enthusiastically eulogistic.  In England the law is exceptionally severe; yet, according to the evidence of those who have an international acquaintance with these matters, homosexuality is fully as prevalent as on the Continent; some would say that it is more so.  Much the same is true of the United States, though there is less to be seen on the surface.  It cannot, therefore, be said that legislative enactments have very much influence on the prevalence of homosexuality.  The chief effect seems to be that the attempt at suppression arouses the finer minds among sexual inverts to undertake the enthusiastic defense of homosexuality, while coarser minds are stimulated to cynical bravado.[273]

    As regards the prevalence of homosexuality in the United States,
    I may quote from a well-informed American correspondent:—­