236 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



whom the Eev. W. G. Lawes, commenting on Signor 

 D Albertis communication to the Colonial Institute, says 

 that their goodwill to the whites is being destroyed by the 

 whites ill-treatment of them : the usual history. 



Contrariwise, in various parts of the world men of several 

 types yield proofs that societies relatively advanced in 

 organization and culture, may yet be inhuman in their ideas, 

 sentiments, and usages. The Eijians, described by Dr. 

 Pickering as among the most intelligent of unlettered peoples, 

 are among the most ferocious. &quot; Intense and vengeful 

 malignity strongly marks the Fijian character.&quot; Lying, 

 treachery, theft, and murder, are with them not criminal, but 

 honourable ; infanticide is immense in extent ; strangling 

 the sickly habitual ; and they sometimes cut up while alive 

 the human victims they are going to eat. Nevertheless they 

 have a &quot; complicated and carefully- conducted political 

 system ; &quot; well-organized military forces ; elaborate fortifica 

 tions ; a developed agriculture with succession of crops and 

 irrigation ; a considerable division of labour ; a separate dis 

 tributing agency with incipient currency ; and a skilled 

 industry which builds canoes that carry three hundred 

 men. Take again an African society, Dahomey. We 



find there a finished system of classes, six in number ; com 

 plex governmental arrangements with officials always in 

 pairs ; an army divided into battalions, having reviews and 

 sham fights ; prisons, police, and sumptuary laws ; an agri 

 culture which uses manure and grows a score kinds of plants; 

 moated towns, bridges, and roads with turnpikes. Yet along 

 with this comparatively high social development there goes 

 what we may call organized criminality. Wars are made to 

 get skulls with which to decorate the royal palace ; hundreds 

 of subjects are killed when a king dies ; and great numbers 

 are annually slaughtered to carry messages to the other 

 world. Described as cruel and blood-thirsty, liars and 

 cheats, the people are &quot; void either of sympathy or gratitude, 

 even in their own families;&quot; so that &quot; not even the appearance 



