amount of time every day in pulling the labia majora in order to elongate them; in selecting a wife the young men attach much importance to this elongation, and the girl whose labia stand out most is most attractive. (Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie, 1894, ht. 4, p. 363.)

It may be added that in various parts of the world mutilations of the sexual organs of men and women, or operations upon them, are practiced, for reasons which are imperfectly known, since it usually happens that the people who practice them are unable to give the reason for this practice, or they assign a reason which is manifestly not that which originally prompted the practice.  Thus, the excision of the clitoris, practiced in many parts of East Africa and frequently supposed to be for the sake of dulling sexual feeling (J.S.  King Journal of the Anthropological Society, Bombay, 1890, p. 2), seems very doubtfully accounted for thus, for the women have it done of their own accord; “all Sobo women [Niger coast] have their clitoris cut off; unless they have this done they are looked down upon, as slave women who do not get cut; as soon, therefore, as a Sobo woman has collected enough money, she goes to an operating woman and pays her to do the cutting.” (Journal of the Anthropological Institute, August-November, 1898, p. 117.) The Comte de Cardi investigated this matter in the Niger Delta:  “I have questioned both native men and women,” he states, “to try and get the natives’ reason for this rite, but the almost universal answer to my queries was, ‘it is our country’s fashion.’” One old man told him it was practiced because favorable to continence, and several old women said that once the women of the land used to suffer from a peculiar kind of madness which this rite reduced. (Journal of the Anthropological Institute, August-November, 1899, p. 59.) In the same way the subincision of the urethra (mika operation of Australia) is frequently supposed to be for the purpose of preventing conception (See, e.g., the description of the operation by J.G.  Garson, Medical Press, February 21, 1894), but this is very doubtful, and E.C.  Stirling found that subincised natives often had large families. (Intercolonial Quarterly Journal of Medicine and Surgery, 1894.)

A passage in the Mainz Chronicle for 1367 (as quoted by Schultz, Das Hoefische Leben, p. 297) shows that at that time the tunics of the men were so made that it was always possible for the sexual organs to be seen in walking or sitting.

This insistence on the naked sexual organs as objects of attraction is, however, comparatively rare, and confined to peoples in a low state of culture.  Very much more widespread is the attempt to beautify and call attention to the sexual organs by tattooing,[135] by adornment and by striking peculiarities of clothing.  The tendency for beauty of clothing to be accepted