o more idea of the advantages of this or that
sort of breeding, or of any laws of Nature bearing on the
question, than they have of differential calculus."[177]

Whatever may have been the origin of these prohibitions, it is obvious
that, as I have said, they acted as obstacles to love; and what is
more, in many cases they seem to have impeded legitimate marriage
only, without interfering with licentious indulgence. Roth (67) cites
O'Donnell to the effect that with the Kunandaburi tribe the _jus
primae noctis_ is allowed all the men present at the camp without
regard to class or kin. He also cites Beveridge, who had lived
twenty-three years in contact with the Riverina tribes and who assured
him that, apart from marrying, there was no restriction on
intercourse. In his book on South Australia J.D. Wood says (403):

"The fact that marriage does not take place between
members of the same tribe, or is forbidden amongst
them, does not at all include the idea that chastity is
observed within the same limits."

Brough Smyth (II., 92) refers to the fact that secret violations of
the rule against fornication within the forbidden classes were not
punished. Bonwick (62) cites the Rev. C. Wilhelmi on the Port Lincoln
customs:

"There are no instances of two Karraris or two Matteris
having been married together; and yet connections of a
less virtuous character, which take place between
members of the same caste, do not appear to be
considered incestuous."

Similar testimony is adduced by Waitz-Gerland (VI., 776), and others.

AFFECTION FOR WOMEN AND DOGS

There is a strange class of men who always stand with a brush in hand
ready to whitewash any degraded creature, be he the devil himself. For
want of a better name they are called sentimentalists, and they are
among men what the morbid females who bring bouquets and sympathy to
fiendish murderers are among women. The Australian, unutterably
degraded, particularly in his sexual relations, as the foregoing pages
show him to be, has had his champions of the type of the "fearless"
Stephens. There is another class of writers who create confusion by
their reckless use of words. Thus the Rev. G. Taplin asserts (12) that
he has "known as well-matched and loving couples amongst the
aborigines" as he has amongst Europeans. What does he mean by loving
couples? What, in his opinion, are the symptoms of affection? With
amusing n