prematurely seduced in consequence of an early awakening of sexuality often adopt a life of prostitution. Children in whom sexuality has awakened are especially dangerous to their associates, since they readily seduce others to sexual malpractices. Thus, it sometimes happens, though happily not often, that children attempt sexual intercourse with one another. A question in forensic medicine formerly much discussed, is the age at which children are first able to effect sexual intercourse. I have no doubt whatever that by the end of the second period of childhood, in a comparatively large number of boys, spontaneous erections occur adequate to allow the introduction of the penis into the vagina to be effected; but no doubt it might be difficult for such a boy to effect complete penetration into the vagina of a girl in whom the hymen was still intact. Pouillet[98] even asserts that all boys have the faculty of erection in quite early childhood; and he places on record the following experiment, whose repetition had better be avoided. If in an infant lying in its cradle the edge of the foreskin be tickled with a feather, we shall at once see the penis swell up and become erect, and the infant will grasp at it with the hand. There is no doubt that boys in whom the sexual impulse is prematurely awakened may be a danger to little girls through attempting intercourse with them. More frequently, however, the danger lies, not in attempts at coitus, but in other improper manipulations and contacts, which may take almost every conceivable form. Mutual masturbation is fairly common among children, or one child may manipulate the genitals of another; such practices occur more often between two boys than between two girls or between boy and girl. But experience shows that other and more advanced sexual acts may occur, though fortunately less often; for instance, paederastic acts between boys, introduction of the penis of one individual into the mouth of another, &c. Ferriani[99] has collected a number of cases of this kind, occurring in youthful criminals. In boys he distinguishes two groups, those from the tenth to the fourteenth, and those from the fourteenth to the eighteenth year of life. He made inquiries regarding the sexual life in 69 boys belonging to the former group, and in 48 belonging to the latter. Of the 69 belonging to the former group, 48 were found to masturbate, in 25 improper sexual acts with the mouth were admitted, in 12 active paederasty, and in 17 passive paederasty. It is evident that these data must not be generalised, for Ferriani's studies related to boys who had been morally neglected from the earliest days of childhood, and who had been sent to prison as thieves, beggars, and vagabonds. A great danger attendant on sexual acts in which one child is led astray by another is, of course, the moral harm which threatens the other associates of such children. Girls and boys are equally exposed to such