Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/487

 to wait near by, in the street, for a reply to the letter, Herr G— accompanied the bearer of this precious communication out to K— strasse, to meet 'N. N.'. The latter was not to be found. But tho next day the same sort of demand was made in sharper language. This time, Herr G— succeeded in meeting his enemy, and also in having the fellow, a certain Emil W—, taken into custody as a blackmailer. Emil W— is in fact a well-known "operator" of this sort. He was given six months imprisonment, with two years loss of civil rights."

The examples so far selected are taken especially from Germany, because they multiply there and are carefully reported. In England and America there are plenty of current cases, more or less of the same stamp. But in England and America the publication of legal or other proceedings that bear on so-called "unnatural offences" is not encouraged by the press, nor often detailed as in Continental Europe. The squeamishness of the Anglo-Saxon mind as to speaking of homosexuality, the British ignorance of how homosexualism should be regarded and is regarded in other countries, considerably suppress such matter from print; or disguise its nature.

The vulgar blackmailer is not always choice in trying to got hold of compromising facts. Sometimes standing in a public urinal, on an entirely innocent errand, some unlucky visitor is seized by a strong hand—just where he is most open to attack. A rough voice hisses—"Twenty francs, or I call the police!—charge you with indecent conduct in a public latrine! Put the money in my other hand!" The intruder often will have 'adjusted'—or disarranged,—his own apparel in such a way as to suggest that an attack on his person really has been made. The terror-struck stranger pays the tax and flies, glad to escape. This impudent trick is mot especially in France, Italy and Spain, because it implies an action criminal under publicity. In Germanic and English cities it is yet more dangerous. Common, too, is