Raped on the Railway

THE LAW OF RAPE

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.

For any of my readers who may be contemplating the luxury of rape on the servant-maid, or some beautiful cousin of the proper age, I think it only right to warn them not to get caught.

Probably there is no more delightful pleasure than getting the better of a much desired, stout-thighed, but unwilling, lady. But the devil of it is that if she be at all inclined to do so, she might make it what is elegantly termed: “damned hot” for her ravisher.

Those unfortunate gentlemen therefore who may be slow-witted enough to get nailed and collared in the fascinating act, will require to know the law on this subject. We take the liberty then to state that rape is defined in law to be “the carnal knowledge of a woman by force, and against her will.” For a long period it was punished as a capital crime in this country, but penal servitude or imprisonment was substituted by the 24 and 25 Vict. c. 100, S. 48. Under this section it is enacted that — “whosoever shall be convicted of the crime of rape shall be guilty of felony, and being convicted thereof, shall be liable, at the discretion of the court, to be kept in penal servitude for life, or for any term not less than three years, or to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labour. Since these changes have been made in the law, it has been alleged that the crime has undergone a considerable increase. Taylor, a great authority if there ever was one, on Medical Jurisprudence, says:

Medical evidence is commonly required to support a charge of rape, but it is seldom more than corroborative, the facts are, in general, sufficiently apparent from the statement of the prosecutrix. There is, however, one case in which medical evidence is of some importance, — namely, when a false accusation is made. In some instances, as in respect to rape on infants and children, the charge may be founded on mistake, but in others there is little doubt that it is often willfully and designedly made, for motives into which it is here unnecessary to inquire. Amos remarked, that for one real rape tried on the Circuits in his time, there were on the average twelve pretended cases. In some few instances these false charges are at once set aside by medical evidence — in others, medical men may be sometimes the dupes of designing persons, but in the majority, the falsehood of the charge is proved by inconsistencies in the statement of the prosecutrix herself.”

It is pleasant to know that some of these charges are made up, and that there is always a chance for a man to get off, although he may, after all, have really climbed between the lady's lovely legs. We give a newspaper extract, to illustrate our meaning.