• April 13, 1899] 



NA rURE 



555 



'nnocent inquiring eyes." The children might sometimes 

 )e got rid of, but the adults were greater difficulties, and 

 IS the women were more animated than the men by 

 :he true scientific spirit of seeing for themselves. Prof 

 David was placed in embarrassing situations oftener even 

 :han his wife. But they both accommodated themselves 

 ,0 circumstance with unfailing good humour, and so 

 Were evidently general favourites. 



Mrs. David calls her book "an unscientific account 

 'Df a scientific expedition." This in a sense is truei 

 because there is no attempt at technical language, 

 "md long words are conspicuously absent ; but every 

 '^age shows close observation, keen insight, and a power 

 'of vivid description, that gives the work a real scientific 

 A'alue. We can almost see Funafuti, and in this are 

 helped by sundry successful reproductions of photographs. 

 'But such a word-picture as the following suffices to bring 

 up the scene. 



1 "We anchored close to the lagoon reef, about a 

 <juarter of a mile from the shore, and over the side, 

 under the shallow water, we saw irregular-shaped masses 

 pi dun-coloured coral with myriads of brilliant fishes 

 (flashing across from hollow to hollow, inquisitive but 

 timid. Then on the shore was a long narrow crescent 

 |of brilliant white sand, lapped by the tiny idle wavelets 

 of the lagoon ; beyond that, a line of low thick tasuna 

 'and gasu bushes, and behind a dense mass of graceful 

 cocoa-nut palms." 



In former days, the Funafutians depended wholly 

 on the cocoa-nut palm and on fishing for subsist- 

 ence, with the result that starvation times were not 

 uncommon. Now the missionaries have taught them 

 to cultivate bananas, bread-fruit, and taro [Arum escu- 

 Jen/uin), and they have pigs, goats and fowls ; so that 

 though cocoa-nut is still a staple food, the "milk" being 

 a substitute for " afternoon tea," they are much better 

 off. But they take life easily, and are great believers 

 in "by-and-by." In fact Mrs. David admits that it is 

 very hard to be energetic on an atoll near the equator, 

 for her attempts at reading generally ended in sleep. 

 So the natives, e.xcept when fishing or some such busi- 

 ness calls for an exceptional e.xercise of energy, lead, on 

 the whole, a very easy life. Food of a simple kind 

 generally is fairly plentiful, their wants are few ; houses, 

 furniture, tools, utensils, even clothing, are all of the 

 simplest. As converts to Christianity, they have aban. 

 doned the graver vices of the savage, and are accus- 

 tomed to the restraints of laws, sometimes perhaps rather 

 too grandmotherly ; but yet they remain, like so many 

 such, physically adults, but mentally and morally no 

 more than children. Mrs. David's quick apprehension 

 of this fact gives the book its special value. -She 

 accepted them as she found them with a sympathetic 

 tolerance, adapting to their case the experiences learnt 

 in her own nursery, with the result that she won their 

 hearts and their confidence. Their language is a mix- 

 ture, .Samoan dominating ; but some can speak our 

 tongue, and a sort of pigeon-English is commonly under- 

 stood. Mrs. David obtained copies of native songs — for 

 a musical (?) evening is a favourite form of Funafutian 

 recreation — and of their popular tales. Thei former are 

 mostly of scriptural origin, and so have little interest ; 

 NO. 1537, VOL. 59] 



but the latter are well worth preservation as samples of 

 Pacific Islanders' folk-lore. 



Funafuti has its drawbacks as a residence. The 

 climate leaves something to be desired ; it is windy, 

 and decidedly rainy. Flies and mosquitos abound to 

 make life a burden, with spiders, cockroaches, and other 

 more or less obnoxious insects, while, among creatures 

 of larger size, land-crabs and small rats seem pre- 

 dominant. The natives suffer greatly from skin diseases, 

 such as itch, ringworm, and Tonu (apparently a kind of 

 leprosy), against which they will not take any precaution. 

 In matters of sanitation, the native pastor is no use at 

 all ; a medical missionary, as Mrs. David says, would be, 

 indeed, a blessing to the Funafutians. But for all their 

 quaint, tiresome, yet lovable ways, we must refer readers 

 to the book. Written in a bright, lively style, like a 

 series of letters to a friend, humorous, yet kindly, full 

 of vivid word-pictures of life and scenery, it is an 

 unusually attractive volume. T. G. BONNEV. 



NATURAL RIGHTS. 



The Right to the Whole Produce of Labour. By Dr. 

 Anton Menger, Professor of Jurisprudence in the 

 University of Vienna. Translated by M. E. Tanner, 

 with an Introduction and Bibliography by II. S 

 Foxwell, M.A., Professor of Economics at University 

 College, London. Pp. cxviii -(- 271. (London : Mac- 

 millan and Co., Ltd., 1899.) 



■pROFES-SOR FOXWELL treats his part of this book 



r 



as complementary to Dr. Menger's treatise, but in 



reality he contributes more than half of the actual printed 

 pages. To allocate the shares briefly. Dr. Menger has 

 analysed critically and historically the socialistic theories 

 of natural rights ; Prof Foxwell has written the history 

 of early English socialists, and added a complete list of 

 their works. The main interest of the book to English 

 readers will be this rescue from oblivion of the men to 

 whom the whole of modern socialistic theory is originally 

 due ; they are Godwin, Hall, Thompson, Gray, Hodgskin, 

 and Bray. Godwin's " Political Justice " (1793) analyses 

 the right to property, regarding want as the only equit- 

 able right, thus forecasting the phrase "to each according 

 to his needs." Hall's "Effects of Civilisation on the 

 People in European States" (1805) contends that the 

 chief effects are, on the one hand, a constant increase of 

 the wealth and power of the idle rich, and, on the other, 

 the greater poverty and subjection of the labouring poor. 

 Thompson's " Inquiry into the Principles of the Distri- 

 bution of Wealth most conducive to Human Happiness" 

 (1824) bases his hypotheses on "the ascertained truths 

 of political economy " of the new Ricardian school, to 

 whose "crude generalisations" socialism owed "its 

 fancied scientific basis," and who, " by a singular irony 

 of fate, by this imperfect presentation of economic doc- 

 trine, did more than any intentionally socialist writer to 

 sap the foundations of that form of society which he was 

 trying to explain, and which he believed to be the typical 

 and natural, if not, indeed, the ideal social state." 

 Thompson held that " to the producer should be secured 

 the free use of whatever his labour has produced," while the 

 capitalist should be indemnified for the wear and tear of 



