Page:The Negro a menace to American civilization.djvu/146

128 scene which followed was one of the most extraordinary in my entire medical experience. Her contortions were superb and utterly natural; her groans and screams were unconfined and were poured out without the least restraint. Not one bit of assistance did I render her from the very first little indication she received that the child had started on its career for the outer world until everything was completely over, even to include the passage of the secundines. It would have been a worthy subject for the modern biograph, and the lesson was by no means lost upon me. I have never forgotten so much as a single part of it, and it is only briefly described here with the sole view of throwing a single ray of light,— a sidelight — upon a certain phase of negro passion. No part of all that is here being set forth in regard to the peculiar sexual instincts of these people is in any way so done in a spirit of criticism, much less with reprehensory intent. Negroes are not responsible for the kind of men and women they are. It is their nature, and they cannot possibly rid themselves of that, any more than skunks and polecats can cast away their abominable scent glands and the outrageous odors they emit. It is not everybody who cares, however, to have a large number of skunks and polecats in the community. With such freedom in the matter of sexual congress among the blacks, one would naturally be led to suppose that their lascivious instincts and proclivities would be satisfied through these practices. This, however, is by no means the case, and negroes of all ages and both sexes, commonly are prone to auto-erotic indulgences; in other words, masturbation