“The great prevalence of sexual inversion in American cities is shown by the wide knowledge of its existence.  Ninety-nine normal men out of a hundred have been accosted on the streets by inverts, or have among their acquaintances men whom they know to be sexually inverted.  Everyone has seen inverts and knows what they are.  The public attitude toward them is generally a negative one—­indifference, amusement, contempt.

“The world of sexual inverts is, indeed, a large one in any American city, and it is a community distinctly organized—­words, customs, traditions of its own; and every city has its numerous meeting-places:  certain churches where inverts congregate; certain cafes well known for the inverted character of their patrons; certain streets where, at night, every fifth man is an invert.  The inverts have their own ‘clubs,’ with nightly meetings.  These ‘clubs’ are, really, dance-halls, attached to saloons, and presided over by the proprietor of the saloon, himself almost invariably an invert, as are all the waiters and musicians.  The frequenters of these places are male sexual inverts (usually ranging from 17 to 30 years of age); sightseers find no difficulty in gaining entrance; truly, they are welcomed for the drinks they buy for the company—­and other reasons.  Singing and dancing turns by certain favorite performers are the features of these gatherings, with much gossip and drinking at the small tables ranged along the four walls of the room.  The habitues of these places are, generally, inverts of the most pronounced type, i.e., the completely feminine in voice and manners, with the characteristic hip motion in their walk; though I have never seen any approach to feminine dress there, doubtless the desire for it is not wanting and only police regulations relegate it to other occasions and places.  You will rightly infer that the police know of these places and endure their existence for a consideration; it is not unusual for the inquiring stranger to be directed there by a policeman.”

The Oscar Wilde trial (see ante, p. 48), with its wide publicity, and the fundamental nature of the questions it suggested, appears to have generally contributed to give definiteness and self-consciousness to the manifestations of homosexuality, and to have aroused inverts to take up a definite attitude.  I have been assured in several quarters that this is so and that since that case the manifestations of homosexuality have become more pronounced.  One correspondent writes:—­

“Up to the time of the Oscar Wilde trial I had not known what the condition of the law was.  The moral question in itself—­its relation to my own life and that of my friends—­I reckoned I had solved; but I now had to ask myself how far I was justified in not only breaking the law, but in being the cause of a like breach in others, and others younger than myself.  I have