actly similar
circumstances, but too conscientious to assume responsibilities which
he cannot carry, and in which failure must compromise the comfort and
tax the purses of people from whom he has no right to extort luxuries,
forbears to marry; but, feeling the passions of his sex, and being
imbued with the prevalent errors on such matters, resorts for relief
to unlawful coition. At the wedding of the former, pious friends
assemble with their presents and congratulations, and bid the legalized
prostitution Godspeed. Love shields the crime, all the more easily
because so many of the rejoicing guests have sinned in precisely the
same way. The other man has no festival gathering.... Society applauds
the first and frowns on the second; but, to my mind, the difference
between them is not markedly in favor of the former."

"We hear a good deal said about certain crimes against nature, such
as pederasty and sodomy, and they meet with the indignant condemnation
of all right-minded persons. The statutes are especially severe on
offenders of this class, the penalty being imprisonment between one
and ten years, whereas fornication is punished by imprisonment for not
more than sixty days and a fine of less than one hundred dollars. But
the query very pertinently arises just here as to whether the use of
the condom and defertilizing injections is not equally a crime against
nature, and quite as worthy of our detestation and contempt. And,
further, when we consider the brute creation, and see that they, guided
by instinct, copulate only when the female is in proper physiological
condition and yields a willing consent, it may be suggested that
congress between men and women may, in certain circumstances, be a crime
against nature, and one far worse in its results than any other. Is
it probable that a child born of a connection to which the woman objects
will possess that felicitous organization which every parent should
earnestly desire and endeavor to bestow on his offspring? Can the
unwelcome fruit of a rape be considered, what every child has a right
to be, a pledge of affection? Poor little Pip, in 'Great Expectations,'
spoke as the representative of a numerous class when he said, 'I was
always treated as if I had insisted on being born, in opposition to
the dictates of reason, religion and morality, and against the
dissuading arguments of my best friends.' We enjoin the young to honor
father and mother, never thinking how undeserv