Are We a Declining Race ? 



them, and their liberty was too quickly turned 

 into license. 



Licentious ideas had already been introduced 

 among some of the male population, and it did 

 not require much persuasion to convert the 

 whole group of islands into a huge agapemone. 



This universal matrimony was a new idea, 

 and the lower orders took to it most readily. 

 Many of those who were not, physically, so well 

 favoured as others, and who had never enter- 

 tained any ideas of marrying, suddenly found 

 themselves confronted with the opportunity of 

 taking a wife. Naturally, they lost no time in 

 seizing it ; it was a case of " Barkis is willin','' 

 without any time lost on courtships, and they 

 kept the missionaries quite busy for a time with 

 the interesting ceremony. 



A lady in the Governor's household, wrote 

 from Fiji to a friend : " To-day being Sunday 

 there has been much church going. ..... 



After morning service there were no less than 

 thirteen weddings. . . . The superfluous 



wives are in much demand by men who hitherto 

 have failed to secure domestic bliss." In another 

 letter she wrote : " So it happened that on 

 reaching this place, Nirukuruku, three days ago, 

 we found no less than forty couples, belonging 

 to this and the neighbouring villages, all wait- 

 ing to be married on the arrival of the mis- 

 sionary." From another place, she wrote: 

 " There is a perfect crowd of interesting young 

 couples, just coming in to be married, so I must 

 watch the proceedings." 



The ceremony itself, no doubt, seemed to be 



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