t from sensationalism, and in part
from sheer ignorance, a case may be allotted to the category of sadism,
which really has nothing to do with this perversion, or whose sadistic
character is doubtful. This applies, for example, to the well-known
Dippold case. Here, the sons of a wealthy Berlin family were mishandled
by a private tutor to such an extent that one of the children died.
Neither by the legal proceedings in this case, nor by any subsidiary
evidence, was it established, in my opinion, that sexual motives existed
for the maltreatment; and only when such motives exist have we any right
to speak of sadism. As a rule, such cases are elucidated only when the
mental life of the offender is very carefully analysed. Therefore, in a
great many cases, while there may be grounds for suspecting the
existence of sadism, adequate proof of this is not forthcoming. Some
cases bearing on this matter will now be briefly recorded.

A furniture polisher, twenty-five years of age, induced two young
fellows to enter his dwelling, and there, under the threat that if they
resisted they would be severely punished by their parents, he made them
submit to a thrashing with a cane. A similar case was reported in Paris
some years ago. A man thirty-seven years of age, supposed to have
formerly been a private tutor, took boarders into his house for love,
and not because he made his living by doing so. He also had under his
care an orphan boy, and it appeared that this child was grossly
ill-treated. When the authorities entered the house, they found the boy
entirely unclothed, but wrapped in rags; he was fastened to the
crossbars of the window, and quite exposed to the cold winter air. To
prevent the child from crying out, a gag had been placed in his mouth.
Of dubious nature, also, was a case which occurred at Berlin in the year
1906, in which a girl twelve years of age was enticed away by another
girl, and taken to a man who, at the suggestion of the second girl, drew
two teeth from the first. In the case reported from Salzwedel some years
ago, it is possible that the offender was insane; but he may have been
sadistically inclined. An eleven-year-old fifth-form boy was enticed
away by a young man of twenty, who took the lad to a hotel, gagged him,
beat him unmercifully with a walking cane, threatening him with a
revolver to prevent his calling for help. The boy suffered also two
severe contused wounds of the head. The offender himself put co