scribing a common assault as the outcome of sadism; and of writing of
any woman of whom mention has to be made in connexion with some public
occurrence, as a young lady of surpassing beauty. But apart from all
this, the newspapers are to-day so full of sexual matters (the question
of sexual enlightenment, the prevention of the venereal diseases, the
suppression of prostitution, the protection of motherhood, &c.), that
with the best will in the world it is impossible to keep children from
reading about such things. Nor can this be regarded as unfortunate, so
long as these questions are treated in a moderate manner.

It is altogether different as regards erotic and obscene books and
pictures. Unfortunately such products obtain a wide currency in schools,
in part as printed pornographica, and in part passed from hand to hand
in the written form. Thus, from a number of girls' schools come reports
of the circulation of thoroughly obscene writings among girls from
twelve to fourteen years of age. Especial favourites are descriptions of
the wedding-night, mostly in manuscript form; also an obscene version of
the story of Faust and Gretchen; and quite a number of other improper
poems pass from hand to hand in girls' schools. In boys' schools, the
circulating matter consists rather of obscene printed books and
pictures. It is evident that the advertisements in many newspapers
indicate the chief source of such articles. There is a trade in obscene
pictures advertised under the harmless title of "Parisian Landscapes."
For the most part these advertisements originate in Paris; to a lesser
extent they come from Hungary, Austria, Italy, and Spain. The German
traders in such commodities do not venture to advertise their wares in
the German newspapers; nor is there any evidence in foreign newspapers
of such advertisements proceeding from Germany. Through the meritorious
activity of the _Volksbund zur Bekaempfung des Schmutzes in Wort und
Bild_ (The Popular League for the Suppression of Obscene Writings and
Pictures), these advertisements have of late almost disappeared from
our newspapers. But it can hardly be doubted that formerly immeasurable
harm was done to children in this way. This is shown by the fact that
half-grown boys often buy such things and circulate them among their
school-fellows, all the more in view of the comparatively low price at
which they can be obtained. The wide diffusion of the evil is proved by
the frequency w