THE AKREOY SOCIETY. 489 



in the fact, that their numbers were already large, the means 

 of subsistence limited, and that, as but few were carried oft' 

 either by disease or in war, the population would soon have 

 outgrown their supplies, if some means were not taken to 

 check the natural increase of numbers.* However this may 

 be, infanticide appears to have been dreadfully prevalent 

 ainonsst them. It has been estimated that two-thirds of the 



o 



children were destroyed by their own parents,^ and both Mr. 

 Nott and Mr. Ellis agree that, during the whole of their resi- 

 dence in the island, until the adoption of Christianity, they 

 did not know a single case of a mother who had not been 

 guilty of this crime. 



According to Wilson, J their language contained no word 

 for " thanks," and even Cook admits that they had no respect 

 for old age. Fitzroy goes still farther, and assures us that 

 " they scrupled not to destroy their aged or sick yes, even 

 their parents, if disabled by age or sickness." No such 

 accusation is, however, brought against them by earlier writers, 

 so that such actions are probably very rare, and the result, as 

 among the Fijians, of misdirected affection rather than of 

 deliberate cruelty. 



They had no money ; and though it was easy to obtain the 

 necessaries of life, to accumulate property was almost impos- 

 sible. Again, the absence of spirituous liquors, and the rela- 

 tions between the sexes (however unsatisfactory in some 

 respects), took away from them some of the principal incen- 

 tives to crime. On the whole, then, if we judge them by a 

 South Sea standard, the natives of the Society Islands appear 

 to have been very free from crime. 



In spite of the differences which sometimes arose in conse- 

 quence of their thievish disposition, and also perhaps in great 



* See, for instance, Kotzebue's J 1. c. p. 365. 



New Voyage, vol. i. p. 308. 1. c. vol. ii. p. 551. 



t Ellis, vol. i. pp. 334, 336. 



