314 PLAIN FACTS FOR OLD AND YOUNG 



nothing of the real cause of his mysterious confessions 

 of terrible sin, think him overconscientious, and lay 

 the blame of his insanity upon religion, when it is 

 solely the result of his vicious habits, of which they 

 are ignorant. 



In other cases, the victim falls into a profound mel- 

 ancholy, from which nothing can divert him. He never 

 laughs; does not even smile. He becomes more and 

 more reserved and taciturn, and perhaps ends the scene 

 by committing suicide. This crime is not at all uncom- 

 mon with those who have gone the whole length of the 

 evil road. They find their manhood gone, the vice in 

 which they have so long delighted is no longer pos- 

 sible, and in desperation they put an end to the mis- 

 erable life which nature might end in a few months 

 if not thus violently superseded. 



Idiocy.— If the practice is continued uninterrupt- 

 edly from boyhood to manhood, imbecility and idiocy 

 are the result. Demented individuals are met in no 

 small numbers in hospitals and asylums, and out of 

 them as well, who owe to this vice their awful condi- 

 tion. Plenty of the half-witted men one meets 

 in the every-day walks of life have destroyed the 

 better half of their understanding by this wretched 

 practice. 



A Victim's Mental Condition Pictured. — The 

 mental condition of a victim of this vice cannot be bet- 

 ter described than is done in the following paragraphs 

 by one, himself a victim, though few of these unfor- 

 tunate individuals would be able to produce so accu- 

 rate and critical a portrait of themselves as is here 

 drawn by M. Eosseau, as quoted by Mr. Acton : 



''One might say that my heart and my mind do not 

 belong to the same person. My feelings, quicker than 



