Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/495

 hundred and forty-five thousand Marks; all between the time when young Götz died (1893) and the date of the weak-hearted Bürkl's final recourse to law-protection. Wölfl and his wife were sentenced (after preposterously impudent efforts to maintain a defense) to the maximum penalties for such doings, under German law—long terms of imprisonment at hard-labour, and to fines as heavy as could he set—though trivial in comparison with what sums the pair had extorted from Bürkl. The latter was not incriminated homosexually before the law, by his case.

In like category, may be mentioned the Schultz Case, in Hamburg, in January, 1909; the "Gensler Case" before the Elbing Criminal Court, in the same month of 1909; and several other cases, (in which greater or lesser sums were systematically obtained by the accused) brought to trial in Germany in 1907, 1908, 1909. They were typical. A few pages later here, will be found notes of a recent French blackmailing case, as of an Italian one, each involving a large extortion from the victim.

The Parisian male prostitutes, of attractive externals, such as haunt the boulevards, are nowadays extremely dangerous as blackmailers on social and criminal leverages, according to circumstances. These French-speaking pests invade in their annual overflow the smart summer-resorts and Riviera centers, according to season. Rich guests of hotels there often suffer from them.

As another example of systematic extortion, in which affair we again meet with soldiers as blackmailers, here is an instance that occurred in Oldenburg, as cited from a local journal:

"A notable blackmailing affair, which has victimized several persons a good while, has at last been brought before our criminal Court. The matter in question as to its operations has "bled" the victim for as high a sum as 28,000 Marks, and has been carried