result of illicit relations it is not, perhaps, so much a matter of surprise as of concern that criminal measures should be resorted to for its premature termination; but when, as is undoubtedly often the case, it occurs among respectable married women, who are often, moreover, in other respects of high moral character, great natural refinement, and culture, it suggests the need of a search for the causes underlying this blunted sense of right and wrong. The exposé recently made in England shows that outside of those who use or submit to operative interference for the procuring of abortion, there is a large and lucrative trade effected by nostrum dealers in abortifacients, often, no doubt, useless for the purpose for which they are sold, but none the less indicative of the attitude of mind on the subject of abortion among the vast clientele of women who cause the business to, pay.

The first and primal error, leading to conditions which ultimately suggest the crime of abortion, we think lies in a total misconception of the real nature of the sexual act and its relation to "love." Two views only are commonly admitted. In the public mind it is with the vast majority a means of purely sense gratification, which is legitimized by "marriage." Marriage may be described as a social, religious, or social-religious compact, whose conditions and method of ratification vary in different races, religions, nationalities, and geographical areas, but the one point of which, common to them all, is that it conveys a license to a man and a woman to indulge in sexual relations without any public hindrance or social stigma attaching thereto; while such hindrance is effected and such stigma does attach to the same act between the same people, if publicly known, nless they have previously entered into that public contract under whatever conditions the local sentiment prescribes.

The other view is that of the social economists, who regard the performance of the sexual act as mainly and primarily for the procreation of the race. An article in the Medical Press and Circular, quoted by the Cincinnati Lancet-Clinic for January 28, on The Marriage of Ovariotomized Patients, and referring to a recent law trial in this country in which a husband sued for divorce on the ground that his wife had prior to her marriage been the subject of oophorectomy, of which fact he was not duly informed, gives frank expression to this view of the sexual relations in the following words: "We know of no authorized view of marriage other than that it is an institution for the procreation of children, and for the vast majority of persons this is, we presume, the ultimate object of the self-imposed sacrifice of sexual liberty."

Now, while we quite indorse the opinion expressed in the article quoted, that the fraud perpetrated by concealing the fact of a known incapacity for motherhood, undoubtedly one of the great reasons for the marriage relation, is a just and reasonable ground for the annulment of the marriage bond, we feel bound to protest against a view of the sexual relations which would reduce the glorified companionship of matrimony to the principles of a stud farm. We hear a great deal in these days about the "revolt of woman." With her awakening intellectual power, she is scarcely likely to remain content with a view of the greatest relationship of life which affords her the alternative of a choice between the position of a licensed handmaid of lust and the functions of a brood mare.

Neither of the views above quoted is in our opinion consistent with the ideal of love. Dr. George F. Butler, in a very thoughtful article, read before the Physician's Club of Chicago and published in the Chicago Clinic for January, on Sexual Desire as Influenced by Religious Emotions, emphasizes by admirably selected quotations the essential relation and analogy between sexual desire and religious feeling. He refers in illustration to the almost sensual expression of religious manifestations of an undoubtedly spiritual character among certain religious enthusiasts. This mode of expression seems easily explicable to us. The true idea of love is an earnest yearning for the most complete and intimate union, harmony of vibration, and mutual absorption attainable between two beings each of whom is both the lover and the beloved. In pure spirit the mode of union would be purely spiritual; in a solely material existence it would be purely sensual; in man it partakes of both in direct proportion to the balance between the physical and spiritual natures of the individual.

Are women as (physically) passionate as men? is a question often asked. We have studied this question extensively, and we must answer "yes" and "no." Women are ready, normal women we mean, to yield themselves wholly to the man they love, intuitively realizing as they do the inner significance of the act. But when they at last sadly and sorrowfully recognize the essentially sensual character of man's interest in it, even when he is genuinely attached to his partner therein, that which should be to them the cup of sweetness often becomes bitter as wormwood.

In the act of sexual congress the properly balanced human being seeks such complete and perfect contact and union of his threefold nature with his mate as, we say it with all due reverence and without offense, the devout Christian of whatever denomination seeks intimate union for his spiritual nature with the Great Fount of all Pure Spirit through sacramental communion. The act of sexual union, therefore, which is undertaken solely for the production of a certain physical sensation is as impure and lustful, whether the parties have acquired a legal right to perform it or not, as an act of communion would be unholy in the Christian if done from a desire to appease hunger with the material bread, or to gratify the palate with the sensuous flavor of the wine, no matter though the act were done with all due observance of the rites and ceremonies prescribed by the religious body to which the individual happened to belong.

Now, in many people, such an exaltation of emotional desire as we consider should be the real motive of the act of sexual congress is often lacking; whence it follows that, speaking of a large number of people— and we refer only to the married in this connection-they must frequently transgress in an unworthy act of sexual communion. The upshot of this is likely to be a blunting of the moral sensibilities as regards the eventualities of such congress, and moreover the transmission of an excessive sensuality to the progeny.

From the social side the difficulties which are placed in the way of the mating of young people in whom the real higher emotion exists lead not infrequently to an "illicit" intercourse. To the artificial conditions which society imposes upon a young couple, such as the necessity for "keeping up an establishment," magnificent or humble in proportion to

the previous social status of the subjects (whereas the girl would probably otherwise remain supported according to her station by her parents, while the man would have an income which sufficed only moderately well enough for him without social obligations to perform), must be added the small wage attendant on labor of whatever kind as compared with the large profits that accrue to the exploiter of his labor by means of his accumulated capital.

To these difficulties and obstacles the tendency of the present day is to add certain others, such as we referred to in an editorial on The Sterilization of Women in our issue for January 28, on social economic grounds for the benefit of the race, and utterly regardless of the rightful emotions and impulses of the individual. Hence follow illicit union (which is by no means necessarily lustful in itself, though it probably arises from lust rather than love in the large majority of cases) and possibly an unexpected and unwelcome pregnancy entailing social outlawry unless obviated. The result is abortion, regarded by the distracted sufferers as the lesser of two evils.

When the congress is the result of lust, whether among the married or unmarried, pregnancy is likely in either case to prove unwelcome; and the blunted sensibilities to a higher ideal which are occasioned by the continual crime against Nature of dwelling on the "outward and visible sign" to the exclusion of the "inward and spiritual grace" or thing signified, viz., complete contact, union, and mutual absorption of two human beings in their perfect nature in all its component parts, mental, emotional, and physical, are not conducive to an adequate appreciation of the criminality of abortion.

The idea of lust as applied to normal sexual relations between married people may possibly strike many as strange. But we believe that in the want of general recognition of this fact lies the secret of the evil. A more through understanding and appreciative practice of actual purity, which is a matter of motive, not of act, among the married, together with the proper and progressive enlightenment of their children on lines similar to those suggested in our articles on The Ethics of Adolescence, would, we think, change the entire public estimate of marriage; and, by removing social and other impediments to the lawful expression of the imperious emotion of love, would at least relegate criminal abortion to the class of the essentially depraved.

SANITARY ARRANGEMENTS FOR COUNTRY HOUSES'.

By HARVEY B. BASHORE, M.D., West Fairview, Pa.

In the average country or village house very little attention is paid to sanitary requirements. The "moss-covered bucket" and the oldfashioned privy still reign supreme. To condemn the village pump is to place one's self beyond the pale of a reasonable being, yet almost every town pump yields a water grossly polluted.

Medical Record.

To put such places on a sanitary basis we need a complete change of existing conditions, and the old privy is probably the place to begin. This should, without any exception whatsoever, be abolished and a dry closet substituted. This may readily be done by closing the floor underneath the seat and putting up a closet such as is shown in Fig. 1. This consists simply of a seat, a galvanized-iron pail, and a box to hold the ashes or dry earth. The one figured in the plate is rather elaborate, yet it can be made almost anywhere for three or four dollars. When the pail is filled it should be emptied directly on to the garden bed and a little earth raked over it. In two or three weeks, depending on the season, all the filth will be destroyed by the nitrifying bacteria and nothing left but a dark, rich humus. A dry closet such as this may be used in any

vacant room in the house, for it is cleanly and odorless. In the absence of water service and sewers, a dry closet is the only proper thing to use. The drinking-water offers another problem for solution. Well water, the kind almost always used in rural districts, very rarely approaches purity; that it does not contain disease germs is simply because the germs have not come in its way. Sooner or later, and generally sooner. all wells become foci of disease. The safest water for rural dwellers drink is cistern water, and if it is collected from a roof kept moderately clean, it will be clear and palatable. I know of a small town in Pensylvania where cistern water is almost exclusively used, and, as a result, typhoid fever the great water-borne disease-is practically unknown.

Now, another point deserving our attention in country homes is the

disposal of waste water from the kitchen, bedrooms, baths, etc. The most general method in vogue is simply to throw it into the street or the backyard-an unsightly and unsanitary procedure.

In the small towns where there is no water service, there are no kitchen sinks or sewers, and the best way is to collect the waste water in buckets and run it through perforated drains, suspended over a cultivated garden bed.

To do this we need a galvanized-iron box or bowl placed at the corner of the bed, as a receiver for the water; from this an old roofgutter extends in any direction available; all this is apparent by reference to Fig. 2. The gutter is perforated by three-sixteenth-inch holes at in

tervals of a foot or so. For a family of four or five the drain should be about twenty feet long and have a fall of about one inch in four feet.

Fig. 3 shows a more elaborate drain made for a house having a kitchen sink and bathroom. Of course, the bed over which these drains are suspended must be cultivated and kept loose and porous by raking.

There is another part of household refuse-namely, the solid kitchen waste (known technically as garbage), which is composed of scraps of meat, potato parings, melon rinds, etc. What becomes of this will be apparent to any one who will take the trouble to wander through the back streets of any of our small towns.

The best method of garbage disposal that is, in small towns-is to dig a hole two or three feet deep on the garden bed, and throw the