124 INFANTICIDE. 



the commission of so horrid and unnatural an 

 act. 



During a visit to the Murrumbidgee and 

 Tumat countries, as well as other parts of the 

 colony, I availed myself of every opportunity to 

 procure information regarding acts of infanticide, 

 as existing among the aborigines of this country. 

 I succeeded in ascertaining that infants were 

 frequently destroyed : sometimes the reason as- 

 signed was some personal defect in the infant,* 

 (whence we may attribute the fact of a deformed 

 person being seldom seen among native tribes,) 

 or the mother not wishing to have the trouble of 

 carrying it about : the female children were 

 more frequently destroyed than the males. I 

 heard of a weak and sickly child having been 

 destroyed, and even eaten : the reason given 

 by the unnatural parents was, that they were 

 very hungry, and the child no use and much 

 trouble ; one redeeming quality, however, was, 

 that they displayed a sense of shame when ac- 

 knowledging the fact, and gave the reason for 



* This is not confined to the Australian natives, for it also 

 occurs in Polynesia. Spix and Martius also observes, in their 

 Travels in Brazil, (Eng. Trans. 8vo. vol. ii. p. 241,) " We did 

 not meet with any deformed persons or cripples among the 

 Indians; for which reason, some people believe that they put 

 them to death immediately after their birth." 



