d be accomplished by castration, an operation which also
finally reached a tolerable state of perfection through different stages
of evolution, it first being performed by a complete removal of the
whole scrotum and contents. This operation, with the ignorance of the
times in regard to stopping haemorrhage, was, however, accompanied by a
large mortality, and it finally evolved into the simple removal of the
gland, or its obliteration by pressure or violence. Bergmann conveys the
idea that circumcision was at one time the indestructible marking and
the distinctive feature of the slave, the mind of the period not being
able to emancipate itself from the idea that the genitals must in some
manner be mutilated, not being able to conceive any other degrading mark
of manhood which barbarians felt they must inflict on slaves.

The generally accepted idea in regard to the physical mutilation of
captives taken in war, or that some token from the body of the
vanquished must be carried off by the victor, has not only the support
of tradition and monumental sculptured evidence, but its practice is
still in vogue among many races. Among the ancient Scythians, only the
warriors who returned from the battle or foray with the heads of the
enemy were entitled to a share in the spoils. Among the modern Berbers
it is still a practice for a young man, on proposing marriage, to
exhibit to his prospective father-in-law the virile members of all the
enemies he has overcome, as evidence of his manhood and right to the
title of warrior. The Abyssinians and some of the negro tribes on the
Guinea coast still follow the custom of securing the phallus of a fallen
foe. However barbarous this practice may seem, its actual performance is
only secondary, the primary motive being that the warrior wished to
prove that he had been there, engaged in actual strife, and that his
enemy had been overcome. The writer remembers that, after one of the
battles in the West during the late war, many letters arrived in his
locality with pieces of the garments or locks of the hair of the
unfortunate Confederate general, Zollikoffer, who had been slain in the
battle; a disposition in the warrior, seemingly still existing, such as
animated the old Egyptians. On an old Egyptian monument,--that of
Osymandyas,--Diodorus noticed a mural sculpture, a _bas-relief_
representing prisoners of war, either in chains or bound with cords,
being registered by a royal scribe preparator