_The Protection of Feminine Chastity._--The criminal laws of to-day recognise only the more serious offences against the chastity of women, such as rape, seduction, gross instances of procurement, and so on. The aims at reform in this connection are as follows. Feminine chastity, above all as far as young girls are concerned, demands much more effective protection than it receives to-day. The age of consent--that is, the age below which intercourse with a woman is in any case a punishable offence--should be raised at least to eighteen, since protection is needed, not merely for the age of bodily immaturity, but also for the period of the puberal development, the dangerous time during which the sexual impulse is awakening. Not only those should be punished who have effected intercourse with a woman by force or under stress of threats, but also those who have effected intercourse by fraudulent means, by promise of marriage, or by taking advantage of the woman’s dependent position (as in the case of employer and female employee or master and maid-servant). Procurement, in the legislation of most countries, receives a ridiculously mild punishment; and in order to restrict the growth of the white-slave traffic, which, as previously pointed out, has now attained colossal dimensions, it is essential that any one who procures a child for sexual purposes should be punished very severely. Those also should be punished who perform improper acts in the presence of an immature person, or who show such a person obscene pictures, or tell obscene stories, or the like. Boys, on account of their sexual inexperience, need the protection of the criminal law no less than girls. _Maltreatment of Children._--Maltreatment of children belongs to the second group of punishable offences against children. It is rare for the offender to maltreat the child of a stranger; the offence is usually committed against a child for whose care the offender is responsible. The principal kinds of maltreatment of children are--(_a_) corporal chastisement; (_b_) improper behaviour towards children (in this connection the question arises whether parents can commit an offence against the honour of their own children); (_c_) working children to excess, either in the form of overwork at school, excessive domestic work, overwork at wage-earning, forcing children to beg, and the like.