SEXUAL HYGIENE 163 



the door of the female sex ; but there do exist such detes- 

 table creatures as male flirts. In general, the male flirt 

 is a much less worthy character than the young lady 

 who makes a pastime of flirtation. He is something 

 more than a flirt. In nine cases out of ten, he is a rake 

 as well. His object in flirting is to gratify a mean 

 l^ropensity at the expense of those who are pure and 

 unsophisticated. He is skilled in the arts of fascination 

 and intrigue. Slowly he winds his coils about his vic- 

 tim, and before she is aware of his real character, she 

 has lost her own. Such wretches ought to be punished 

 in a purgatory by themselves, made seven times hotter 

 than for ordinary criminals. 



Society is full of these lecherous villains. They in- 

 sinuate themselves into the drawing-rooms of the most 

 respectable families ; they are always on hand at social 

 gatherings of every sort. They haunt the ball-room, 

 the theater, and even the church when they can for- 

 ward their infamous plans by seeming to be pious. Not 

 infrequently they are well supplied with a stock of 

 pious cant, which they employ on occasion to make an 

 impression. They are the sharks of society, and often 

 seize in their voracious maws the fairest and brightest 

 ornaments of a conmiunity. The male flirt is a mon- 

 ster. Every man ought to despise him; and every 

 woman ought to spurn him as a loathsome social leper. 



Any young man who has been heartlessly jilted by 

 a young woman upon whom he has placed his affec- 

 tions, should waste no time in regrets that his suit has 

 been refused, but should consider himself in the highest 

 degree fortunate that he has not been permitted to 

 form a lifelong alliance with one who was utterly un- 

 worthy of the affections of any honest man. So also 

 the young lady whose affections have been trifled with 



