persons, but it sometimes happens that children infect one another. Little need be said here about the dangers of gonorrhoeal infection. Although in children the course of the disease exhibits many peculiarities, the general results are much the same as in adults, viz., pain, orchitis and epididymitis with atrophy, cystitis, &c.; and in girls, more especially peritonitis. Other venereal infections may of course also occur in children, such as soft chancre and syphilis. No detailed account will be given of these diseases. Although we need further information as to the results of venereal infection in children, in well-informed medical circles the numerous and severe ill consequences of such infections are well understood. I have in this chapter spoken more especially of the dangers threatening the child's health from the side of its sexual life. These are, of course, not the only dangers; the moral and social dangers are even greater. First of all, in this connexion, we have to consider the practice of masturbation; but in our estimate of its effect upon morals, we must be careful to avoid sanctimoniousness. The question why masturbation is regarded as immoral has never yet been answered, declamation being here commonly mistaken for argument. And yet reasons may be found for the belief that masturbation may sometimes be a positively moral act; as, for instance, when one who is dominated by a very powerful sexual impulse, avoids injury to another by means of masturbation. Consider a case, for example, in which one who masturbates would otherwise transmit venereal infection to another, or would injure another by illegitimate sexual intercourse. In cases of perverse sexual practices in which the offender's liability to punishment was under discussion in the law court, I have more than once called attention to this point. Take the case of a man whose sexual impulse is directed towards children, and who finds great difficulty in restraining himself from sexual malpractices against children. His action is assuredly a far more moral one if he satisfies his impulse by the practice of masturbation, rather than by a sexual assault upon a child! If, notwithstanding these considerations, masturbation is generally regarded as an immoral act, the reason for this opinion must obviously be sought in deeper and more general grounds. In the first place, we have to take into account the fact that according to the moral code of many persons, and certainly according to the official theological code, the only kind of sexual intercourse that is morally permissible is that which is known as "legitimate," _i.e._ connubial intercourse; extra-connubial intercourse is stigmatised as immoral. Masturbation, like extra-connubial sexual intercourse, is sexual indulgence outside the limits of that which is alone permissible by the canons of theological morality. Owing to the definite teaching of the Church in this matter, the views of the common people are inevitably