_Roger_: "Why _should_ they? If they must form these unions, it is better they should be sanctified by the production of children. I must say it redeems the whole thing in my eyes; the Germans don’t ignore their half-caste children, but have them properly brought up. It is better than what you call ’sinning in secret’ and blushing at—or repudiating the consequences.... This _maddening_ question of sexual irregularities, which now seems to clog the progress of all European Colonies, and to fill up the press of the United States and of England—are they always writing about it in Australia?" _Mrs. Stott_: "Strange to say, we never get any Australian papers. I don’t know whether Phil does either.... I seem to belong so very much more to England or to north Ireland, where all my relations live...." _Roger_: "... I often wish the Almighty or Nature or Chance—or whatever it was that developed us out of lifeless matter—had not tried this clever trick of the two sexes—I suppose it began a hundred million years ago, in the union of two entirely different microbes. I wish we had been allowed to go on increasing by fissure, by budding. Certainly among the world-problems of to-day it is the most difficult to solve. I sometimes feel irritated against Christianity for the fuss it makes about Chastity. But I imagine it arose from the tremendous revulsion that took place in the Eastern Mediterranean two thousand years ago against an excessive sexual licence: just in those very countries where the purest doctrines of self-restraint were afterwards preached. The Christian ideal certainly seems the most likely to promote a good type of human being, but it is very hard to live up to.... Yet what texts you could find—in favour of Chastity—you missionaries—_if_ you only realized the history of the Negro and did not go merely to the Old and New Testament for your pegs to hang a sermon on. The Negro is in his present inferior position because he has weakened his mental energy by extravagant sexual indulgence—and limited his numbers. Do you find the Happy Valley any less depraved than Nguru or Ugogo?" Mrs. Stott: "I should _think not_. A little worse, if possible! I assure you, Major Brentham, when we first arrived from Australia I had _no conception_ there could _exist_ such _depravity, such_ vices. They were referred to here and there in the Bible. But I did not know what the references meant...."