happened, for example, in Herzegovina in the year 1859, when a young man named Milutin seduced or (to be more exact) was seduced by three unmarried girls and got them all with child. The people sat in judgment upon the sinners, and, though an elder proposed to stone them all, the court passed a milder sentence. The young man was to marry one of the girls, to rear the infants of the other two as his legitimate children, and next time there was a fight with the Turks he was to prove his manhood by rushing unarmed upon the enemy and wresting their weapons from them, alive or dead. The sentence was fulfilled to the letter, though many years passed before the culprit could carry out the last part of it. However, his time came in 1875, when Herzegovina revolted against the Turks. Then Milutin ran unarmed upon a regiment of the enemy and found among the Turkish bayonets a hero’s death.[98.2] Even now the Old Catholics among the South Slavs believe that a village in which a seducer is not compelled to marry his victim will be punished with hail and excessive rain. For this article of faith, however, they are ridiculed by their enlightened Catholic neighbours, who hold the far more probable view that thunder and lightning are caused by the village priest to revenge himself for unreasonable delays in the payment of his salary. A heavy hail-storm has been known to prove almost fatal to the local incumbent, who was beaten within an inch of his life by his enraged parishioners.[98.3] [Sidenote: Inference from the severe punishments inflicted for sexual offences.] It is difficult to believe that in these and similar cases the community would inflict such severe punishment for sexual offences if it did not believe that its own safety, and not merely the interest of a few individuals, was imperilled thereby. {99}