Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/491

 The reader probably has made up bis mind that in some cases foregoing (as he may make it up in regard to some that will follow) there was more or less ground for a charge against the unlucky victim; even if the blackmailer deserves no less our execration. We can well admit that when a blackmailer tries such a game, usually there is a basis of fact for it. But this does not alter the aspect of the need of suppressing the oppressor. Furthermore, the blackmailer is not rare who has not a shred of reason for his'attack, especially in large cities. Some years ago, a distinguished musical artist, the violinist B—, was arrested and imprisoned in Brunswick, on the charge of having violated a young tailor's apprentice. The affair made a great scandal. But on examination, it proved to be made out of, not whole cloth from the shop of the young tailor's employer but—entirely from a romance in print; with some sexual and other changes. Awhile ago, two tourists were arrested by a blackmailer's impudence, and were confined in a Berlin prison nearly a fortnight, until the fact was clear that the rascal had invented the case, with clumsy impudence.

Be it observed here—with regret—as to Germany that during the earlier years of the existence of the Paragraph 175, of the German Code, there was much blackmailing by arresting, etc., from the city-police, as trumpers-up of charges, for the sake of seeming to be vigilant, or for money. This was one of the reasons why the late Herr Meerscheidt-Hüllesem, of the Berlin Police, so strongly urged the removal of the Paragraph mentioned. He found it encouraged crime and roguery in men of his squads, not all of whom were proof against such despicable but infectious temptation.

To blackmail is instinctive in those parts of Europe where the law is severe, where the homosexual,