182 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



In the first place 1 will allude to the only statistics I can obtain 

 on the subject in reference to the Tropics, and will advance those 

 collected by Dr. Robertson, of England, and published in his Essays 

 and Notes on the Physiology and Diseases of Women, in which he 

 states that " the ordinary age at which women in Bengal commence 

 to menstruate is twelve years ; " and again Dr. Goodene, Professor 

 of Midwifery at Calcutta, asserts that a large portion of Hindoo 

 women bear children before they are fourteen years old, and the 

 earliest age at which he has known a Hindoo woman bear a child is 

 ten years. Dr. Curtis relates the history of a girl aged ten, who was 

 delivered of a healthy child at the full term of pregnancy. 



It will, I am sure, be thought unnecessary to adduce further in- 

 stances, in support of the precocious development of children of the 

 tropics, as it is greatly known and acknowledged ; and I merely 

 mention here that it is equally understood to be mainly owing to 

 natural causes, insomuch as they refer to custom and to climatic in- 

 fluence. 



It is to the early development of children of these northern climes, 

 that I wish now particularly to draw attention, and to point to it as 

 a full exemplification of the trite old saying, " extremes meet." Be- 

 fore passing on to the natives of the far north (the Eskimo), I will 

 allude to the data that I have collected from various sources and 

 mention, en passa7it, how trying an undertaking it is to make the 

 '' old Indian wife " disclose anything approaching trustworthy in- 

 formation ; for assertions are made that will, on a little cross-exa- 

 mination, be utterly refuted ; and further, their method of computing 

 events by a species of incidental comparison necessitates their pass- 

 ing through a process of logical deduction before they can be settled 

 upon. For instance, C. B. was "a wife" for the fii-st time, "the 

 year the Great Stone Chief (Dr. R. Bell) visited the settlement " 

 We remember when that event took place, then refer to the register, 

 and find the date of her birth ; that is simple, but when you are in- 

 formed that M. F. was a wife the year the wavies (snow-geese) were 

 so thick on the East Coast of Hudson's Bay, as that was several 

 years ago, and the occasion had not been particularly noted, the re- 

 sult is apt to be conjectural. But from my own notes of some years 

 past, together with some intelligent help from the several Indian 

 settlements, I have been enabled to compile a table on the subject ; 

 which leads me to infer, that if the histories of 500 women were 



