A history of English sexual morals / by Ivan Bloch ; translated by William H. Forstern.

  • Iwan Bloch
Date:
1936
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A history of English sexual morals / by Ivan Bloch ; translated by William H. Forstern. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    up and gives the alarm: people come rushing in, the poor officer is arrested and thrown into prison and eventually cashiered from his regiment in disgrace. Ten years elapsed. British officers presented a petition for the reinstatement of Baker Pascha, who had served with the Turkish forces in the Russian campaign (1877) and had been promoted to the rank of general for distinguished service in Egypt; whereupon a counter-petition appeared, signed by thousands of English ladies, who protested so indignantly that the Queen, in spite of the intercession of the Prince of Wales (a personal friend of Baker), simply did not dare to grant the original petition. On this occasion the press opened its columns to sundry screams of feminine indignation. One lady explained that English womanhood had been insulted in the person of Miss Dickenson. Another lady was overcome to think that a British officer could bring himself to shake hands with such a despicable creature as Baker, or to sit at the same table with him. A third wrote: ' His presence is an insult to every woman in the nation'; and a fourth held the opinion that even the mention of such a profligate's name was a gross indecency. To speak of him at all must therefore be forbidden1. It was necessary to dwell at some length on these salient features of the English national character and to set them in the right perspective because the knowledge of them and their continual recognition is essential to any under- standing of English sex-life and its peculiarities. For the character of a people (or of an individual) is revealed nowhere more clearly than in the realm of sex. Here those noteworthy peculiarities in race and individual are seen in sharpest, clearest outline, because a human being is most completely himself in this sphere. Those prominent elements in the national character to which I have already 1 Presentation of the Baker Affair by Hector France, La Pudique Albion. Paris, 1900. Pp. 180-183. C [13]