288 PLAIN FACTS FOR OLD AND YOUNG 



21. The gait of a person addicted to this vice will 

 usually betray him to one who has learned to distin- 

 guish the peculiarities which almost always mark the 

 walk of such persons. In a child, a dragging, shuffling 

 walk is to be suspected. Boys, in walking rapidly, 

 show none of that elasticity which characterizes a nat- 

 ural gait, but walk as if they had been stiffened in the 

 hips, and as though their legs were pegs attached to the 

 body by hinges. The girl wriggles along in a style 

 quite as characteristic, though more difficult to detect 

 with certainty, as girls are often so ''affected" in their 

 walk. Unsteadiness of gait is an evidence seen in both 

 sexes, especially in advanced cases. 



22. Bad positions in bed are evidences which should 

 be noticed. If a child lies constantly upon its abdo- 

 men, or is often found with its hands about the genitals, 

 it may be at least considered in a fair way to acquire 

 the habit, if it has not already done so. 



23. Lack of development of the breasts ii^ females, 

 after puberty, is a common result of self-pollution. 

 Still, it would be entirely unsafe to say that every 

 female with small mammary glands had been addicted 

 to this vice, especially at the present time, when a fair 

 natural development is often destroyed by the constant 

 pressure and heat of ''pads." But this sign may well 

 be given a due bearing. 



24. Capricious appetite particularly characterizes 

 children addicted to secret vice. At the commence- 

 ment of the practice, they almost invariably manifest 

 great voracity for food, gorging themselves in the most 

 gluttonous manner. As the habit becomes fixed, diges- 

 tion becomes impaired, and the appetite is sometimes 

 almost wanting, and at other times almost unap- 

 peasable. 



