of strangers, combine to spread a veil over the esoteric side of
life, which, even when at last it fails to conceal from the young
the urban stimuli of that life, effectually conceals, for the
most part, the gratifications of those stimuli. In the country,
however, these restraints do not exist in any corresponding
degree; animals render the elemental facts of sexual life clear
to all; there is less need or regard for decorum; speech is
plainer; supervision is impossible, and the amplest opportunities
for sexual intimacy are at hand. If the city may perhaps be said
to favor unchastity of thought in the young, the country may
certainly be said to favor unchastity of act.

The elaborate investigations of the Committee of Lutheran pastors
into sexual morality (_Die Geschlechtich-sittliche Verhältnisse
im Deutschen Reiche_), published a few years ago, demonstrate
amply the sexual freedom in rural Germany, and Moll, who is
decidedly of opinion that the country enjoys no relative freedom
from sexuality, states (op. cit., pp. 137-139, 239) that even the
circulation of obscene books and pictures among school-children
seems to be more frequent in small towns and the country than in
large cities. In Russia, where it might be thought that urban and
rural conditions offered less contrast than in many countries,
the same difference has been observed. "I do not know," a Russian
correspondent writes, "whether Zola in _La Terre_ correctly
describes the life of French villages. But the ways of a Russian
village, where I passed part of my childhood, fairly resemble
those described by Zola. In the life of the rural population into
which I was plunged everything was impregnated with erotism. One
was surrounded by animal lubricity in all its immodesty. Contrary
to the generally received opinion, I believe that a child may