is most probable that their children are very like
those of their neighbors; and any amount of natural goodness is not
a protection against this insidious vice when it presents itself as
a harmless pleasure to the unwarned and ignorant child.

Suspicious Signs.--The following symptoms, occurring in the mental and
physical character and habits of a child or young person, may well give
rise to grave suspicions of evil, and should cause parents or guardians
to be on the alert to root it out if possible:--

1. _General debility_, coming upon a previously healthy child, marked
by emaciation, weakness, an unnatural paleness, colorless lips and gums,
and the general symptoms of exhaustion, when it cannot be traced to
any other legitimate cause, as internal disease, worms, grief, overwork,
poor air or poor food, and when it is not speedily removed by change
of air or appropriate remedial measures, may safely be attributed to
solitary vice, no matter how far above natural suspicion the individual
may be. Mistakes will be rare indeed when such a judgment is pronounced
under the circumstances named.

2. _Early symptoms of consumption_--or what are supposed to be such--as
cough, and decrease in flesh, with short breathing and soreness of the
lungs--or muscles of the chest--are not infrequently, solely the result
of this vice. That such is the case may be considered pretty surely
determined if physical examination of the lungs reveals no organic
disease of those organs. But it should be remembered that solitary vice
is one of the most frequent causes of early consumption. Several cases
which strikingly prove this have fallen under our own observation.

3. _Premature and defective development_ is a symptom closely allied
to the two preceding. When it cannot be traced to such natural causes
as overstudy, overwork, lack of exercise, and other influences of a
similar nature, it should be charged to self-abuse. The early exercise
of the genital organs hastens the attainment of puberty, in many cases,
especially when the habit is acquired early, but at the same time saps
the vital energies so that the system is unable to manifest that
increased energy in growth and development which usually occurs at this
period. In consequence, the body remains small, or does not attain that
development which it otherwise would. The mind is dwarfed as well as
the body. Sometimes the mind suffers more than the body in lack of
development, and sometimes