The conviction that the body is wicked and ought to be concealed is important, because it leads women to expose portions of it which they would otherwise protect, and rightly protect, from the rigours of the atmosphere, in the belief that they are making themselves attractive. Thus women swathed in layers of furs in respect of the rest of their persons, will venture forth on the coldest day with bare bosoms and open-work stockings. It is with the same object that, though their religion bids them mortify the flesh and refrain from making of themselves a stumbling block to others, they will appear at dinner with necks, bosoms, backs, and arms completely naked, a proceeding not only acquiesced in but encouraged by their males. This sort of thing is anathema to the herd, who cannot afford the evening dress and the furs, and to the old, the condition of whose bodies does not, except in the case of the incurably optimistic, permit them to take the same liberties as their daughters. Hence we may expect a considerable stiffening of public opinion in the matter of decorum in dress and a return to the days in which everything except the hands and the face was carefully covered up. In the sphere of what is called sexual morality we may expect a growing tendency to make wickedness (that is to say conduct which is not in the interests of the stronger) punishable by law. Attempts will be made, and successfully made, to multiply crimes by Act of Parliament. A good example of this tendency will be found in the Bill entitled _The Children, Young Persons, etc., Bill_, introduced by a Labour Member during the tenure of office by the Labour Government in 1924. It represents bourgeois or herd morality “in excelsis.” It is known as the _Offences against the Person Bill_, and its object is to codify and extend the existing enactments against abortion, cruelty to children, offences against children, and neglect of children. Many of its provisions are admirable and afford what is no doubt a necessary protection to children against suffering and neglect. Nevertheless it menaces individual liberty in two ways. In the first place it increases the number of offences punishable by law, often in an arbitrary manner. For example, it is made a crime punishable by two years hard labour for a girl of sixteen to have intercourse with a young man of eighteen, the criminal being not, as one might have expected, the elder of the two parties concerned, but the girl. She alone is liable to imprisonment; the young man is allowed to go free. It is also a criminal offence to conceal the birth of a dead child, to cause or encourage a child to beg, or to celebrate the marriage of a boy and a girl under sixteen, such marriages being declared invalid.