HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR* 
155 
after birth alone that the destruction of life takes place. 
This species of murder is effected at times for the purpose 
of avoiding the disgrace to which the violation of moral 
propriety would expose the guilty parties, and in some 
instances from the same shameful motives which occasionally 
operated formerly among the natives of the South Sea 
islands—the fear of having too large a family : the destruc¬ 
tion of life before birth, from the latter consideration, occurs, 
however, but rarely, and in general a numerous offspring is a 
source of much satisfaction. Notwithstanding this, the hor¬ 
rible crime of child-murder has prevailed from time imme¬ 
morial, and in some parts of the country is perpetrated still. 
During the reign of Radama, the inhuman practice of 
infanticide received a powerful and salutary check, espe¬ 
cially near the seat of government, and within the range of 
his personal influence. He presented an instance of 
opposition to it in his own family, as an example, and 
humanely promulgated laws prohibiting, under the severest 
penalties, a practice alike opposed to the highest interest 
of the nation and the best and strongest feelings of 
humanity. He manifested on this occasion the strong and 
shrewd faculty of wisdom with which he was so eminently 
endowed, and proceeded to the accomplishment of his 
object in a manner of all others most adapted to remove 
the superstitious prejudices, and engage the assistance of 
the parents themselves. This barbarous murder was only 
committed on those infants whose fate the pagan astrolo¬ 
gers of the country declared required it. Radama, in 
prohibiting their destruction, declared that all the infants 
doomed to death by the astrologers became his, and that 
whoever destroyed them destroyed his children, and should 
suffer death for the murder of the children of the king. 
