cruelty, degrading punishment, and semi-starvation inflicted upon children.  The accused are most usually women, and when a man and woman in conjunction are accused it appears generally to have been the woman who played the more active part.  But it is rarely demonstrated in these cases that the cruelty exercised had a definite sexual origin.  There is nothing, for instance, to indicate true sadism in the famous English case in the eighteenth century of Mrs. Brownrigg (Bloch, Geschlechtsleben in England, vol. ii, p. 425).  It may well be, however, in many of these cases that the real motive is sexual, although latent and unconscious.  The normal sexual impulse in women is often obscured and disguised, and it would not be surprising if the perverse instinct is so likewise.

It is noteworthy that a passion for whipping may be aroused by contact with a person who desires to be whipped.  This is illustrated by the following case which has been communicated to me:  “K. is a Jew, about 40 years of age, apparently normal.  Nothing is known of his antecedents.  He is a manufacturer with several shops.  S., an Englishwoman, aged 25, entered his service; she is illegitimate, believed to have been reared in a brothel kept by her mother, is prepossessing in appearance.  On entering K.’s service S. was continually negligent and careless.  This so provoked K. that on one occasion he struck her.  She showed great pleasure and confessed that her blunder had been deliberately intended to arouse him to physical violence.  At her suggestion K. ultimately consented to thrash her.  This operation took place in K.’s office, S. stripping for the purpose, and the leather driving band from a sewing-machine was used.  S. manifested unmistakable pleasure during the flagellation, and connection occurred after it.  These thrashings were repeated at frequent intervals, and K. found a growing liking for the operation on his own part.  Once, at the suggestion of S., a girl of 13 employed by K. was thrashed by both K. and S. alternately.  The child complained to her parents and K. made a money payment to them to avoid scandal, the parents agreeing to keep silence.  Other women (Jewish tailoresses) employed by K. were subsequently thrashed by him.  He asserts that they enjoyed the experience.  Mrs. K., discovering her husband’s infatuation for S., commenced divorce proceedings.  S. consented to leave the country at K.’s request, but returned almost immediately and was kept in hiding until the decree was granted.  The mutual infatuation of K. and S. continues, though K. asserts that he cares less for her than formerly.  Flagellation has, however, now become a passion with him, though he declares that the practice was unknown to him before he met S. His great fear is that he will kill S. during one of these operations.  He is convinced that S. is not an isolated case, and that all women enjoy flagellation.  He claims that the experiences of the numerous women whom he has now thrashed