_Abortion._--Abortion is common in every age. In ancient times, amongst the majority of peoples, it was not considered a punishable offence. Even in Christian Europe, down to the eighteenth century, it was not punished when the act was performed within ten weeks of the occurrence of conception. The explanation of this is that during the earlier stages of development the embryo was not supposed to possess a soul. To-day, abortion is a punishable offence, but is none the less extraordinarily common. Official statistics make no approach to completeness, for the great majority of abortions remain secret. An expert to-day, owing to the gigantic advances in surgical technique, can procure abortion without either difficulty or danger. In every large town there are numerous doctors who specialise as abortionists. Even the midwives do not hesitate to undertake such manipulations. In every populous resort will be found large institutions where women are given an opportunity for concealing the consequences of illicit intercourse by the practice of abortion. Where conception has occurred in a married woman, it may be fear for the future of the child, of a lowering of the standard of life of the family, or of the act of parturition, which leads to the practice of abortion; where the pregnant woman is unmarried, fears as to the future of mother and child may also be operative, but the principal motives are the dread of disgrace and the desire to conceal the fact that pregnancy has occurred. Among women of the proletariat it will readily be understood that abortion is carried out less skilfully than in the case of women belonging to the well-to-do class, for proletarian women are unable to pay for such highly-skilled assistance. It is for this reason that a much larger proportion of criminal abortions are discovered in the case of proletarian women than in the case of the well-to-do. The number of abortions is comparatively greater in the towns than in the country, and the technique of abortion is a more skilful one in the former districts than in the latter.