SCIENTIFIC MARRIAGES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2913, 12 January 1910, Page 43 (Supplement)

SCIENTIFIC MARRIAGES.

PROFESSOR'S STARTLING REMEDY FOR DEGENERACY.

" The fond mother, instead of looking at the coming bridegroom's banking account, should have a look at his insurance policy, which will tell her something of his history, and give her an idea as to whether he is the man to be the father of her daughter's children," said Dr Slaughter, lecturing at the Victoria University on the

science of eugenics, which seeks to educate the people to adopt a method of care ful selection in marriage, with a view to the improvement of the race. Unfortu nately, said the lecturer, the public was greatly given to a belief in the efficacy of environmental influences. There was a belief that the way to reform people in slums was to re-house them. But these people forgot that, though they could transfer a slum population to another place, in five years those same people would probably create an'other slum. He sometimes met the particularly benighted individual

who d'd not believe in heredity. He felt bound to point out to them that if there was no such thing as heredity they should be able to take a human being out of an acorn or an angel out of an egg. In the present day the undesirable class were multiplying at an appalling rate, and what was to be done? Some people said they did not like the idea of eugenics, because they objected to any board being set up to select people for marriage. Such a beard doing its duty properly might bo able to produce almost anything from human plas-

•deity, but they never would have the power to force peojsle to go on these linee. Whatever progress was made would certainly have to be made' by some form of selection. They were often met with the argument that marriage was the natural outflow of affection, was something spontaneous, and so on. But marriage really was a thing which had always been greatly controlled —by religion, class consideration, and social conditions, for example. Eugenics sought to so affect those conditions as to better the race. " We want

our boys and girls to know that mating is the most important thing in life,' tinat the act of mating determines what the children are to be," said Professor Slaughter, and added that it was within the power of every unmarried individual to raise the quality of the race. He would put the mentally deficient and degenerate in colonies, and deny them the privilege of contributing to the race. The same thing applied to criminals. He would l not treat the born criminal by the present absurd, barbarous, penal methods, but put them in colonies.

The design represents Britannia at the helm of the barque of Progress, with Mercury, emblematical of the Press, at the prow. The barque is supported by four wings, representing the four quarters of the earth, upon a globe of the world, on which the British Empire is traced, the whole standing on a plinth round which are engraved upon festoons of laurel the names of the Dominions and Colonies which were represented at the Imperial Press Conference in June last. —Designed by the Goldsmiths arid Silversmiths Co., Ltd.

The midget tenants of “ Tiny Town will become officially visible on December 1, but in the meantime they are making acquaintance with the life of a Loudon suburb in a strictly unofficial capacity. The little gentleman who is here seen inquiring his way of a friendly policeman, spent 14 years at Yildiz Kiosk, in the service of the ex-Sultan of Turkey. —Photo, by Halftones.