MRS HARDINGE-BRITTEN ON MATRIMONIAL SELECTIONS.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3348, 15 September 1879, Page 3

MRS HARDINGE-BRITTEN ON MATRIMONIAL SELECTIONS.

r"£n an eloquent lecture delivered by Mrs flardinge-Britten (who will be in Auckland in a week or ten days), in Danedin, on . the causes of poverty and crime, reference was made to a subject which must-hare frequently occurred to thought, ful minds, hut which has not at present secured - that attention and discussion which it is destined at no distant date to receive. Mrs Britten delicately, but no less significantly, pointed to the care • taken to improve the breed of domestic animals, to elevate even plants and fruits 'that administered to ouruseandluxary, all of whidh obeyed any laws of progress the intelligence of roan brought to bear upon them. Whilst a science of the most potentially progressive character was applied to all lower forms of life, tho noblest and the most important—the science of human character through, ante-natal conditions— was utterly ignored, or fastidiously crowded out of general observation. Physiology and physchology alike had revealed the stupendous formative effect of antenatal conditions, and yet human souls were launched on the ocean of eternity through the impure and unholy alliances contracted between estates, titles, and fortunes rather than, hearts, minds, and temperaments, So long as our young women were mere objects of traffic, adorned like merchants' wares with such accomplishments ss would fit them for a matrimonial market, and young men married a pretty face instead of a noble mind,' it would be in vain to look for noble characters and elevated minds as the remit of such unions. It must have repeatedly struck many thoughtful minds what care has been shewn in the improvement of the breed of animals, with the absence of all care in the improvement in the'breed of men. It is now a well-estab-lished fact insanity is hereditary, and so also it .will be found that criminal tendencies are. Poverty, the lecturer urged, arose as much from the crimes of profligacy and excessive luxury in the *rich, as from the intemperance or vices of the poor..' If rich as well as poor were instructed in the solemn duties of parentago, and educated in the strictest sense under high, moral influences, unfavorable circumstances and surroundings would disappear, inherited tendencies to vice would end, life would be a practical religion, and religion a living practice.