290 THIS DESCENT OF MAN. 



of 130.3 males to 100 females. But during this same year 

 and in certain limited districts, the numbers were ascer- 

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

 753 and the females GIG; that is in the ratio of 122.2 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 no n 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 practiced there to a 

 frightful extent, but was by no means confined to female 

 infants, as is shown by Mr. Ellis,* and as I have been informed 

 by Bishop Staley and the Rev. Mr. Coan. Nevertheless, 

 another apparently trustworthy writer, Mr. Jarves,f 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 4,723 males and 3,776 

 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 1,797, and of females of 

 the same ages 1,429; and here we have the ratio of 125.75 

 males to 100 females. 



In a census of all the islands in 1850, J the males of all 

 ages amount to 36,272, and the females to 33,128, or as 

 1U9.49 to 100. The males under seventeen years amounted 



* " Narrative of a Tour through Hawaii," 1826. p. 298. 

 f History of the Sandwich Islands/' 1843, p. 93. 

 \ This is given in the Rev. H. T. Cheever's "Life in the Sandwich 

 Islands," 1S51 ; p. 277. > 



