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Rh Polynesians. Baby farming, the strangling of infants, the cruel destruction by mothers of their progeny by hiding them under fences, by laying them on cold door-steps, or throwing them into pits, are practices employed by those who enjoy the results of many centuries of civilization. At the moment I write the daily press is teeming with accounts of awful crimes of this description; and it is painful to read the leading articles in which the crime of infanticide is discussed. The white mother kills her infant in the vain hope of preserving her social position—high or low—of concealing the error or crime which preceded the birth; the black woman simply, I believe, because she is not capable of supporting her offspring, or in order to render impossible an increase of population which the food-resources of the tribe would be unable to meet. Amongst the whites this awful crime is often committed in obedience to laws made by man—amongst the natives of Australia the practice is followed in obedience to laws which necessity compels them to keep.

The first name given to a child is dependent on some accident at its birth—on the sudden appearance of a kangaroo or other animal, on the birth taking place at a well-marked locality, or under a tree of a particular species. And it is named also from any peculiarities that it may present.

The late Mr. Thomas says that one man in the Melbourne district was named Ber-uke (kangaroo-rat), in consequence of a kangaroo-rat running through the miam at his birth. Poleeorong (cherry-tree) was so called because he was born under the shelter of a native cherry-tree. Weing-parn (fire and water) was so denominated in consequence of the miam catching fire and the fire being put out by water at the time of his birth. Wonga, the head-man of the Yarra tribe, was born at Wonga (Arthur's Seat), and thus has the name.