in man’s form.  Some are positively repelled by the sight of nakedness, even that of a husband or lover.  On the contrary, most men delight in gazing upon the uncovered figure of women.  It seems that only highly-cultivated and imaginative women enjoy the spectacle of a finely-shaped nude man (especially after attending art classes, and drawing from the nude, as I am told by a lady artist).  Or else the majority of women dissemble their curiosity or admiration.  A woman of seventy, mother of several children, said to a young wife with whom I am acquainted:  ’I have never seen a naked man in my life.’  This old lady’s sister confessed that she had never looked at her own nakedness in the whole course of her life.  She said that it ‘frightened’ her.  She was the mother of three sons.  A maiden woman of the same family told her niece that women were ’disgusting, because they have monthly discharges.’  The niece suggested that women have no choice in the matter, to which the aunt replied:  ’I know that; but it doesn’t make them less disgusting,’ I have heard of a girl who died from haemorrhage of the womb, refusing, through shame, to make the ailment known to her family.  The misery suffered by some women at the anticipation of a medical examination, appears to be very acute.  Husbands have told me of brides who sob and tremble with fright on the wedding-night, the hysteria being sometimes alarming.  E, aged 25, refused her husband for six weeks after marriage, exhibiting the greatest fear of his approach.  Ignorance of the nature of the sexual connection is often the cause of exaggerated alarm.  In Jersey, I used to hear of a bride who ran to the window and screamed ‘murder,’ on the wedding-night.”  (Private communication.)

At the present day it is not regarded as incompatible with modesty to exhibit the lower part of the thigh when in swimming costume, but it is immodest to exhibit the upper part of the thigh.  In swimming competitions, a minimum of clothing must be combined with the demands of modesty.  In England, the regulations of the Swimming Clubs affiliated to the Amateur Swimming Association, require that the male swimmer’s costume shall extend not less than eight inches from the bifurcation downward, and that the female swimmer’s costume shall extend to within not more than three inches from the knee. (A prolonged discussion, we are told, arose as to whether the costume should come to one, two, or three inches from the knee, and the proposal of the youngest lady swimmer present, that the costume ought to be very scanty, met with little approval.) The modesty of women is thus seen to be greater than that of men by, roughly speaking, about two inches.  The same difference may be seen in the sleeves; the male sleeve must extend for two inches, the female sleeve four inches, down the arm. (Daily Papers, September 26, 1898.)

“At ——­, bathing in a state of Nature was de rigueur for the