twelve, according to
another, was deflowered by Theseus, down to modern times, we find that
premature sexual development is frequently adduced as a characteristic
of such women. Although it is true that in many cases of the seduction
of children there is no question of sexual prematurity, still, for a
part of the cases, premature sexual development is responsible. For it
can hardly be disputed that the crime of the child-seducer is greatly
facilitated, if the child meets the seducer halfway. In cases in which
sexual offences were committed on little girls, Tardieu[96] made a
special class of those in which the offence was frequently repeated upon
the same individual. Of the 60 cases of this kind, 29 were in little
girls under eleven years of age, and 26 were in girls from eleven to
fifteen years. He states that in these chronic victims, he was first of
all struck by the premature development of the genital organs and the
remarkable prematurity of general sexual development, both of these
conflicting with the age and the development of the girls in other
respects, Tardieu certainly paid especial attention to the physical
peculiarities of the genital organs, and he was inclined to refer the
premature development to the early experience of sexual intercourse. But
it is possible that the real connexion was the reverse of this--and,
indeed, many other observations support such a view--in that owing to
their sexual prematurity the children experienced a powerful sexual
impulse at an unusually early age, and that for this reason they became
the victims of sexual attempts much earlier than others. Kisch[97] also
believes that in many cases of premature puberty, premature sexual
intercourse is observed, and parturition may even occur at a very early
age. He writes: "A girl in whom menstruation began at the age of one
year, gave birth to a child when she was ten years old (Montgomery). A
girl who began to menstruate when at the age of nine years, became
pregnant very shortly afterwards (d'Outreport). The well-known case
recorded by Haller, in which at birth the pubic hair was already grown,
and in which menstruation began at the age of two years, was also one of
very early pregnancy, the girl giving birth to a child when nine years
old. Another girl in whom at birth the pubes were already covered with
hair began to menstruate when four years old, copulated regularly from
the age of eight, and at nine years became pregnant, and was