“Means should be used to secure the regular action of the bowels, by employing mild aperients and injections, as previously recommended. “More vigorous measures than the above might be productive of much mischief.” Footnote 28: One of the English kings, Edward III., in the year 1344, picked up from the floor of a ball-room, an embroidered garter, belonging to a lady of rank. In returning it to her, he checked the rising smile of his courtiers with the words, “Honi soit qui mal y pense!” or, paraphrased in English, “Shame on him who invidiously interprets it!” The sentiment was so greatly approved, that it has become the motto of the English national arms. It is one which might be not inaptly nor unfrequently applied in rebuking the mawkish, skin-deep, and intolerant morality of this hypocritical and profligate age. Footnote 29: It may perhaps be argued, that all married persons have this power already, seeing that they are no more obliged to become parents than the unmarried; they may live as the brethren and sisters among the Shakers do. But this Shaker remedy is, in the first place, utterly impracticable, as a general rule; and, secondly, it would chill and embitter domestic life, even if it were practicable. Footnote 30: Will our sensitive fine ladies blush at the plain good sense and simplicity of such an observation? Let me tell them, the indelicacy is in their own minds, not in the words of the French mother. Footnote 31: For a vice so unnatural as onanism there could be no possible temptation, and therefore no existence, were not men unnaturally and mischievously situated. It first appeared, probably in monasteries; and has been perpetuated by the more or less anti-social and demoralizing relation in which the sexes stand to each other, in almost all countries. In estimating the consequences of the present false situation of society, we must set down to the black account the wretched consequences (terminating not unfrequently in incurable insanity) of this vice, the preposterous offspring of modern civilization. Physicians say that onanism at present prevails, to a lamentable extent, both in this country and in England. If the recommendations contained in these pages were generally followed, it would probably totally disappear in a single generation. Footnote 32: See letter of Percy Bysshe Shelley, published in the “Lion,” of December 5, 1828. Footnote 33: