in terror.  He became curious as to the cause of his terror and in time was able to observe “the animal,” but the train of feelings which had been set up led to a life-long indifference to women and a tendency to homosexuality.  It is noteworthy that he was attracted to men in whom the hair and other secondary sexual characters were well developed. (Fere, L’Instinct Sexuel, second edition, pp. 262-267.)

As a sexual fetich hair strictly belongs to the group of parts of the body; but since it can be removed from the body and is sexually effective as a fetich in the absence of the person to whom it belongs, it is on a level with the garments which may serve in a similar way, with shoes or handkerchiefs or gloves.  Psychologically, hair-fetichism presents no special problem, but the wide attraction of hair—­it is sexually the most generally noted part of the feminine body after the eyes—­and the peculiar facility with which when plaited it may be removed, render hair-fetichism a sexual perversion of specially great medico-legal interest.

The frequency of hair-fetichism, as well as of the natural admiration on which it rests, is indicated by a case recorded by Laurent.  “A few years ago,” he states, “one constantly saw at the Bal Bullier, in Paris, a tall girl whose face was lean and bony, but whose black hair was of truly remarkable length.  She wore it flowing down her shoulders and loins.  Men often followed her in the street to touch or kiss the hair.  Others would accompany her home and pay her for the mere pleasure of touching and kissing the long black tresses.  One, in consideration of a relatively considerable sum, desired to pollute the silky hair.  She was obliged to be always on her guard, and to take all sorts of precautions to prevent any one cutting off this ornament, which constituted her only beauty as well as her livelihood.” (E.  Laurent, L’Amour Morbide, 1891, p. 164; also the same author’s Fetichistes et Erotomanes, p. 23.)

The hair despoiler (Coupeur des Nattes or Zopfabschneider) may be found in any civilized country, though the most carefully studied cases have occurred in Paris. (Several medico-legal histories of hair-despoilers are summarized by Krafft-Ebing, Op. cit., pp. 329-334).  Such persons are usually of nervous temperament and bad heredity; the attraction to hair occasionally develops in early life; sometimes the morbid impulse only appears in later life after fever.  The fetich may be either flowing hair or braided hair, but is usually one or the other, and not both.  Sexual excitement and ejaculation may be produced in the act of touching or cutting off the hair, which is subsequently, in many cases, used for masturbation.  As a rule the hair-despoiler is a pure fetichist, no element of sadistic pleasure entering into his feelings.  In the case of a “capillary kleptomaniac” in Chicago—­a highly intelligent and athletic married young man