of homosexual passion, or even no approach to it at all, will cost his peace of mind, his income, his home, his future! The blackmailer, who seemed so friendly an uranian type, has plundered him; has exiled him, if the unfortunate man is able to fly; or flight has been impossible or a vain expedient. Few Uranians, in the hundred can afford to fly from the legal or social zone of their persecutor. The blackmailed may be married, a father of a family, at the head of a business that is his all; or otherwise not free-footed.
The attacked can (and he should) courageously seek the police-authorities, to reveal the situation. At the price of more or less suspicion on himself, perhaps of his semi-confession, he can have his tormentor arrested and nearly always fully punished. Blackmailing is per se, an offence of which modern Codes take severe notice. That is the best rescue, the safest escape, the only legal method, coûte que coûte! Unluckily the victim has not always the knowledge, the courage, or evidence enough for this heroic stand. So he submits. Sometimes he resolves to kill the blackmailer. He often has done so, and has suffered death for it. But, as last and too-usual resort of the victim in half of Europe (particularly in Germanic Europe and often in America) he "gets out of it all" by—suicide. The motive of his self-murder may transpire; but usually it does not. At least, it escapes general notice. Like Sir Peter Teazle, he must go away leaving his character behind him. But the blackmailer's visits, or letters, cannot often follow him into the tomb.
Instance of
Systematic
Blackmail.
Some examples of this dastardly art. and of the misery it causes, follow here. They are only a few of such. The following details, in a long autobiographic narrative from a German victim, are given in the "Jahrbuch
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