There are a few cities in Southern Europe where the rate of illegitimacy equals, and in one or two cases slightly exceeds, the legitimate births; but that is owing to the fact that betrayed girls from the country nearly always go to the cities to find a refuge and hide their shame.  Taking the countries as a whole we find that even Scotland, which has always had a somewhat unsavory reputation in this respect, had, in 1897, only 6.98 per cent of illegitimate births—­say seven in a hundred; the highest rate since 1855 having been 10.2.  There are, of course, besides this, cases of uncertain paternity, but their number is comparatively small, and it certainly is much larger in the less civilized countries of Europe than in the more civilized.  Taking the five or six most advanced countries of Europe and America, it is safe to say that the paternity is certain in ninety cases out of a hundred.  If we now look at the Australians as described by eye-witnesses since the earliest exploring tours, we find a state of affairs which makes paternity uncertain in all cases without exception, and also a complete indifference on the subject.

ABORIGINAL WANTONNESS

One of the first explorers of the desert interior was Eyre (1839).  His experiences—­covering ten years—­led him to speak (378) of “the illicit and almost unlimited intercourse between the sexes.”  “Marriage is not looked upon as any pledge of chastity; indeed, no such virtue is recognized” (319).  “Many of the native dances are of a grossly licentious character.”  Men rarely get married before they are twenty-five, but that does not mean that they are continent.  From their thirteenth year they have promiscuous intercourse with girls who abandon themselves at the age of ten, though they rarely become mothers before they are sixteen.[155]

Another early explorer of the interior (1839), T.L.  Mitchell, gives this glimpse of aboriginal morality (I., 133): 

“The natives ... in return for our former disinterested kindness, persisted in their endeavors to introduce us very particularly to their women.  They ordered them to come up, divested of their cloaks and bags, and placed them before us.  Most of the men appeared to possess two, the pair in general consisting of a fat plump gin and one much younger.  Each man placed himself before his gins, and bowing forward with a shrug, the hands and arms being thrown back pointing to each gin, as if to say, Take which you please.  The females, on their part, evinced no apprehension, but seemed to regard us as beings of a race so different, without the slightest indication of either fear, aversion, or surprise.  Their looks were rather expressive of a ready acquiescence in the proffered kindness of the men, and when at length they brought a sable nymph vis-a-vis to Mr. White, I could preserve my gravity no longer, and throwing the spears aside, I ordered the bullock-drivers to proceed.”