THE GREAT PROCREATION FETISH 189 



have been quite overshadowed, and pushed into the 

 background. Every sufferer knows that he can 

 contract the most dreaded of these diseases but 

 once ; even if cured he need not fear reinfection ; 

 he acquires permanent immunity. He is therefore 

 absolutely without restraint if once infected, and 

 becomes a focus for the moral and physical con- 

 tamination of the community. Far different is the 

 case of the Irish peasantry, who with little disease, 

 are extremely continent, being restrained by moral 

 considerations wholly. Again, though disease 

 does not conduce to morality, it does conduce to a 

 base caution, a fact to which many a wretched girl 

 owes her seduction at the hands of some scoundrel 

 anxious to indulge his passions without danger to 

 himself. Moreover, a horrible superstition is 

 prevalent among the lower and more ignorant 

 classes. They believe that the complaint may be 

 cured by "passing it on" to a hitherto innocent 

 person — another potent cause of the seduction of 

 boys and girls, as well as for the even more repre- 

 hensible outrages against children of which we 

 sometimes read. 



I wish it had been possible for me to write less 

 plainly — to observe the tapu more carefully. I 

 doubt not many will think my language has been too 

 plain. Yet ever have I endeavoured to restrain 

 the vehemence of my words, lest others, who have 



