motives of self-respect and good feeling.  “At the age of 8,” writes a correspondent, “I was one day playing in a spare room with a girl of about 12 or 13.  She gave me a penholder, and, crouching upon her hands and knees, with her posterior toward me, invited me to introduce the instrument into the vulva.  This was the first time I had seen the female parts, and, as I appeared to be somewhat repelled, she coaxed me to comply with her desire.  I did as she directed, and she said that it gave her pleasure.  Several times after I repeated the same act at her request.  A friend tells me that when he was 10 a girl of 16 asked him to lace up her boots.  While he was kneeling at her feet his hand touched her ankle.  She asked him to put his hand higher, and repeated ‘Higher, higher,’ till he touched the pudenda, and finally, at her request, put his finger into the vestibule.  This girl was very handsome and amiable, and a favorite of the boy’s mother.  No one suspected this propensity.”  Again, a correspondent (a man of science) tells me of a friend who lately, when dining out, met a girl, the daughter of a country vicar; he was not specially attracted to her and paid her no special attention.  “A few days afterward he was astonished to receive a call from her one afternoon (though his address is not discoverable from any recognized source).  She sat down as near to him as she could, and rested her hand on his thigh, etc., while talking on different subjects and drinking tea.  Then without any verbal prelude she asked him to have connection with her.  Though not exactly a Puritan, he is not the man to jump at such an offer from a woman he is not in love with, so, after ascertaining that the girl was virgo intacta, he declined and she went away.  A fortnight or so later he received a letter from her in the country, making no reference to what had passed, but giving an account of her work with her Sunday-school class.  He did not reply, and then came a curt note asking him to return her letter.  My friend feels sure she was devoted to auto-erotic performances, but, having become attracted to him, came to the conclusion she would like to try normal intercourse.”

Wolbarst, studying the prevalence of gonorrhea among boys in New York (especially, it would appear, in quarters where the foreign-born elements—­mainly Russian Jew and south Italian—­are large), states:  “In my study of this subject there have been observed 3 cases of gonorrheal urethritis, in boys aged, respectively, 4, 10, and 12 years, which were acquired in the usual manner, from girls ranging between 10 and 12 years of age.  In each case, according to the story told by the victim, the girl made the first advances, and in I case, that of the 4-year-old boy, the act was consummated in the form of an assault, by a girl 12 years old, in which the child was threatened with injury unless he performed his part.” (A.L.  Wolbarst, Journal of the American Medical Association, Sept. 28, 1901.) In a further