nce of the former leads the normal and healthy man to regard
sexual approaches to children as unnatural and detestable. But, apart
from the question of immaturity, we have to recognise that in children
the moral sphere also deserves consideration; that notwithstanding the
possible recent development of physical maturity, the child as such
requires protection, in order to prevent the occurrence of such moral
corruption as will render it incapable, when grown-up, of obeying the
moral law. No thoughtful person can refuse to admit the child's right to
protection.

But here a peculiar point needs attention, concerning, namely, the
treatment in the law courts of such offences against children. I
consider that by legal intervention in these cases the child's morals
are sometimes more gravely endangered than by the original offence. If a
man has momentarily laid his hand on the knee of a girl of ten, the
child can hardly be said to have been injured, and will certainly have
received much less injury than would result, if the case be brought into
court, from cross-questioning of the child, not merely by its own
relatives, but also by the police, the magistrate and his colleagues (in
the court of first instance), by the public prosecutor and the counsel
for the defence (in the higher court), and perhaps in addition by expert
witnesses. When such a child is asked, whether the offender did not put
his hand higher than the knee, whether he did or did not actually touch
the genital organs, grave dangers may arise from such questioning.
There is a further danger, in that some times, in such a case, the child
is present in court throughout the entire proceedings. Some years ago,
in Hamburg, I was called as an expert witness in a case of this kind. In
this instance, the presiding judge, and also the public prosecutor and
the defending counsel, exhibited the greatest possible delicacy, when
one child was under examination, in sending the others, as far as
possible, out of court. But I have also been present at trials in which
no such precautions were taken, but in which every child was allowed to
hear all the uncleanness in the evidence of the other children, and
perhaps also in that of adults. Knowledge of the world, and, above all,
tact, will best save the judge from treating children wrongly in this
matter. The way in which a trial is conducted, which is often an
extremely mechanical one, will not always enable the judge to avail
hims