wakes prematurely,
is a common cause of crime--although this may be true of certain special
cases, presently to be described. But the sexual life of the child is of
importance from another point of view. In cases in which children are
the objects of sexual offences, such as have recently so often come
before the courts, the question of the capacity of the children to give
evidence frequently plays a great part. The lawyer, who is often
ignorant of the extent to which sexual imaginations and sexual acts may
prevail among children, is apt to assume that the child is of necessity
sexually inexperienced, and for this reason to put a trust in childish
evidence which is in many instances not justified by the facts of the
case, because the supposed inexperience may not really exist. If judges
and magistrates knew how much and how often children's brains are
occupied with sexual imaginations, without speaking of the sexual acts
which many children have engaged in while still quite young, they would
be more guarded than they are at present in their acceptance of
children's evidence in sexual matters. Not infrequently, when such a
child describes the sexual offence which is supposed to have been
committed, it is assumed without further inquiry that the child's
account must be accurate, the grounds for this assumption being stated
as follows: "How could such an accusation be invented? The poor child
has had no previous experience of such matters; what is now described
must have actually happened, for it is impossible that an inexperienced
child could construct it all out of its own imagination." But to anyone
who has seriously studied the sexual life of the child, this logic is
utterly fallacious. Still, the argument is none the less a very
dangerous one; and as an expert witness I have assisted at several
trials as to which I remain convinced to this day that the judge has
assumed the offender to be guilty simply because he (the judge) was
ignorant of the nature of the sexual life of the child, above all as
regards psychosexual imaginations. Some years ago there was tried in
Berlin a case in which a wealthy banker was accused of misconduct with a
little girl. In the end the accused received a severe sentence. In that
trial I was called as an expert witness, and I believe that as regards
the principal charge the banker was wrongfully condemned. The principal
witness was a girl twelve years of age, and it was her accusation which
fo