SHOCKING INFANTICIDE. 327 
atrocity of the act, Mr. Young seized the man v 
led him before the king, Tamehameha, who was 
then at Waiakea, and requested that he might be 
punished. The king inquired, “ To whom did 
the child he has murdered belong?” Mr. Young 
answered, that it was his own son. “ Then,” said 
the king, “ neither you nor I have any right to 
interfere ; I cannot say any thing to him.” 
We have long known that the Sandwich Islanders 
practised infanticide, but had no idea of the ex¬ 
tent to which it prevailed, until we had made 
various inquiries during our present tour, and had 
conversed with Karaimoku, Kapiolani, the go¬ 
vernor, and several other chiefs, who, though for¬ 
merly unwilling to converse on the subject, have, 
since their reception of Christianity, become more 
communicative. 
It prevails throughout all the islands, and, with 
the exception of the higher class of chiefs, is, as 
far as we could learn, practised by all ranks of 
the people. However numerous the children 
among the lower orders, parents seldom rear more 
than two or three, and many spare only one; all 
the others are destroyed, sometimes shortly after 
birth, generally during the first year of their age. 
The means by which it is accomplished, though 
numerous, it would be improper to describe. 
Kuakini, the governor of the island, in a conversa¬ 
tion I had with him at Kairua, enumerated many 
different methods, several of which frequently 
proved fatal to the mother also. Sometimes they 
strangle their children, but more frequently bury 
them alive. 
Among the Society Islanders, who, while they 
were idolaters, probably practised infanticide more 
than any other natives in the Pacific, if the in- 
