Raped on the Railway

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I have always, as a doctor and a man of the world, had a horror of rape on infants and children. Nothing can be more shocking than to take a helpless child and endeavour to satisfy one's lust upon its innocent body. Cases of rape on vigorous adult women come under quite a different category. We all know of the clever answer which, it is said, was made by Catherine of Russia or, as other people say, Napoleon the First, to the woman who came with a complaint that she had been tripped on her back and ridden by some hot-blooded soldier against her will. The monarch took a sword and, drawing the blade from the scabbard, invited the violated woman to plunge the steel back again into the empty sheath while he wriggled it before her.

Of course the lady was unable to do so, and her case was consequently non-suited. Balzac has a similar delightful story where, instead of sword or scabbard, a piece of thread and the eye of a needle were employed, and instead of an Emperor, the person who posed the problem was a judge. But that is another story, as Rudyard Kipling would say, for the girl did succeed in a most ingenious manner, which proves how dangerous it would be if women were furnished as men are, and able to commit rapes on us.

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