first degree involves the punishment of imprisonment for twenty years, there is a disinclination to convict a man unless the case is a very bad one. One judge, indeed, has asserted that he will not give any man the full penalty under the present law, so long as he is on the bench. The natural result of stretching the law to undue limits is to weaken it. Instead of being, as it should be, an extremely serious crime, rape loses in a large proportion of cases the opprobrium which rightly belongs to it. It is, therefore, a matter for regret that in some English dominions there is a tendency to raise the "age of consent" to an unduly high limit. In New South Wales the Girls' Protection Act has placed the age of consent at sixteen, and in the case of offences by guardians, schoolmasters, or employers at seventeen years, notwithstanding the vigorous opposition of a distinguished medical member of the Legislative Council (the Hon. J.M. Creed), who presented the arguments against so high an age. Not a single prosecution has so far occurred under this Act.
In England the force of the