Early impurity beyond all other causes warps the moral sense, blunts the delicacy of womanly modesty, dims the perception of the difference between right and wrong—in a word, is quickest to sear the conscience. Crimes of violence, crimes of any sort, which are not traceable to this origin are outbursts of momentary distemper; but impurity of the sort mentioned lays the foundation of an habitual aptitude to commit the worst crimes, as though the tendency to do so were inborn and natural. Let us examine the facts as exhibited in the history of the Jukes family. Throughout the six generations studied by Mr. Dugdale he found 162 marriageable women, including, as facts required him to do, some of very tender years. Of these 84 had lapsed from virtue at some time or other. This is an enormous percentage compared with the police returns of our most crowded seaboard cities. Among the Jukes women 52.40 per cent. were fallen women. In New York, London, Paris, and Liverpool the highest calculation does not exceed 1.80. If such was the moral _status_ of the female portion of the family, it is not difficult to conceive what a low ebb morals among the males must have reached. The more closely we look into the facts recorded by Mr. Dugdale, the more irresistible becomes the conclusion that these moral pariahs yielded themselves up without restraint to every excess from the moment sexual life dawned upon them, and blushed not to commit crimes which do not bear mention. In the record of their lives we meet at every line expressions which brand these people as the modern representatives of the wicked ones who 3,700 years ago shrivelled in the fire of God’s anger on the plains of the Dead Sea. Indeed, the fact that the infamous practices which made the “Jukes” family notorious are the beginning of an utter loss of conscience has been long recognized by Catholic theologians, who, while admitting that loss of faith is a more serious loss than that of purity, contend that the latter is more degrading, more profoundly disturbs the moral nature of man, and speedily blinds him to the perception of every virtue. Many more facts might be adduced in support of this proposition, both from the pages of Mr. Dugdale and the various reports of our reformatory and punitive institutions, but what has been said will no doubt be deemed sufficient.