84 | POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
He was informed that it was rather a novel mode 
of punishment, and that it was hoped: he would 
not keep him there long. He said, no, he should 
lower him before the evening. A similar mode of 
punishment may, I believe, have been used in 
some of our public schools, in which a kind of 
large birdcage has been substituted for a basket ; 
but of this Hoibu had never heard. The invention 
was his own, and it was scarcely possible to repress 
a smile at the ludicrous appearance of the sus- 
pended boy. 
Although the training of their children, and 
other domestic duties, which the females were now 
called to discharge, were important matters of 
inquiry, there were others, more deeply interest- 
ing, frequently brought forward at their meetings. 
Some of these questions regarded the children who 
were born since the gospel had been introduced, 
and who they were most anxious should share all 
its blessings ; others frequently referred to such as 
they had murdered under the influence of idolatry. 
Sometimes a mother would, in enumerating the 
crimes of which she had been guilty, recount the 
number of her children she had destroyed, and 
with anguish relate her struggles of affection, or 
pangs of remorse, and the distress she now felt ; 
observing, that their images were ever present to 
her thoughts, and, as it were, constantly haunting 
her paths, so that she was afraid even to retire to 
the secret places of the bushes for private prayer, 
lest their ghosts should rise before her. Often 
such individuals would say, they feared there was 
no hope of mercy for them, that they had re- 
peatedly committed the premeditated murder of 
the innocent, and would perhaps repeat the scrip- 
ture declaration, that no murderer hath eternal 
