Chap. VIII. Proportion of the Sexes. 257 



are not large, and as the census was not accurate, uniform 

 results cannot be expected. It should be borne in mind in this 

 and the following cases, that the normal state of every population 

 is an excess of women, at least in all civilised countries, chiefly 

 owing to the greater mortality of the male sex during youth, and 

 partly to accidents of all kinds later in life. In 1858, the 

 native population of New Zealand was estimated as consisting 

 of 31,667 males and 24,303 females of all ages, that is in the 

 ratio of 1303 males to 100 females. Bat during this same year, 

 and in certain limited districts, the numbers were ascertained 

 with much care, and the males of all ages were here 753 

 and the females 616 ; that is in the ratio of 1222 males to 100 

 females. It is more important for us that during this same 

 year of 1858, the non-adult males within the same district 

 were found to be 178, and the non-adult females 142, that is in 

 the ratio of 125*3 to 100. It may be added that in 1844, at 

 which period female infanticide had only lately ceased, the 

 non-adult males in one district were 281, and the non-adult 

 females only 194, that is in the ratio of 144*8 males to 100 females. 

 In the Sandwich Islands, the males exceed the females in 

 number. Infanticide was formerly practised there to a frightful 

 extent, but was by no means confined to female infants, as 

 is shewn by Mr. Ellis, 96 and as I have been informed by Bishop 

 Staley and the Rev. Mr. Coan. Nevertheless, another apparently 

 trustworthy writer, Mr. Jarves, 97 whose observations apply to 

 the whole archipelago, remarks: — "Numbers of women are to 

 " be found, who confess to the murder of from three to six or eight 

 " children ;" and he adds, " females from being considered less 

 " useful than males were more often destroyed." From what is 

 known to occur in other parts of the world, this statement is 

 probable; but must be received with much caution. The 

 practice of infanticide ceased about the year 1819, when idolatry 

 was abolished and missionaries settled in the Islands. A careful 

 census in 1839 of the adult and taxable men and women in the 

 island of Kauai and in one district of Oahu (Jarves, p. 404), 

 gives 4723 males and 3776 females; that is in the ratio of 

 125*08 to 100. At the same time the number of males under 

 fourteen years in Kauai and under eighteen in Oahu was 1797, 

 and of females of the same ages 1429 ; and here we have the 

 ratio of 125*75 males to 100 females. 

 In a census of all the islands in 1850, 98 the males of all ages 



so < N arr ative of a Tour through 98 This is given in the Rev. H. T. 



Hawaii,' 1826, p. 298. Cheever's ' Lite in the Sandwich 1s- 



•» « History of the Sandwich lands,' 1851, p. 277. 

 Islands,' 1843, p. 93. 



