mental capacity_ without apparent cause should occasion
suspicion of evil practices. When a child who has previously learned
readily, mastered his lessons easily, and possessed a retentive memory,
shows a manifest decline in these directions, fails to get his lessons,
becomes stupid, forgetful, and inattentive, he has probably become the
victim of a terrible vice, and is on the road to speedy mental as well
as physical ruin. Watch him.

9. _Fickleness_ is another evidence of the working of some
deteriorating influence, for only a weak mind is fickle.

10. _Untrustworthiness_ appearing in a child should attract attention
to his habits. If he has suddenly become heedless, listless, and
forgetful, so that he cannot be depended upon, though previously not
so, lay the blame upon solitary indulgence. This vice has a wonderful
influence in developing untruthfulness. A child previously honest,
under its baneful influence will soon become an inveterate liar.

11. _Love of solitude_ is a very suspicious sign. Children are naturally
sociable, almost without exception. They have a natural dread of being
alone. When a child habitually seeks seclusion without a sufficient
cause, there are good grounds for suspecting him of sinful habits. The
barn, the garret, the water-closet, and sometimes secluded places in
the woods, are the favorite resorts of masturbators. They should be
carefully followed and watched, unobserved.

12. _Bashfulness_ is not infrequently dependent upon this cause. It
would be far from right to say that every person who is excessively
modest or timid is a masturbator; but there is a certain timorousness
which seems to arise from a sense of shame or fear of discovery that
many victims of this vice exhibit, and which may be distinguished from
natural modesty by a little experience. One very common mode of
manifestation of this timidity is the inability to look a superior,
or any person who is esteemed pure, in the eye. If spoken to, instead
of looking directly at the person to whom he addresses an answer, the
masturbator looks to one side, or lets his eyes fall upon the ground,
seemingly conscious that the eye is a wonderful tell-tale of the secrets
of the mind.

13. _Unnatural boldness_, in marked contrast with the preceding sign,
is manifested by a certain class of victims. It can be as easily
distinguished, however, as unnatural timidity. The individual seems
to have not the slightest appreciation of propriet