in foreign colonies.  How, then, can an over-increase of population be more harmoniously prevented than by making the young and sleek furnish the starving with a plump existence?  Is it not, economically viewed, the principle of Dr. Franklin’s smoke-consuming pipe applied to the infinitely more important sphere of human existence?  The festive table, to which, according to the great Malthus, Nature declines inviting a large portion of every well-peopled country, will never be known by the happy Fijian Say or Senior, so long as wise conservatism shall not change its old and sacred laws, and shall allow Nature to invite one happy portion as guests, and another happy portion as savory dishes.  It is Nature in modest simplicity, as it is exhibited in half-a-dozen mice in a deep kettle, of whom one survivor and material representative remains.  The Chinese expose female infants, and lawful infanticide has been abolished in some districts of the British East Indies within these thirty years only.  Would it not be wiser to reassimilate the tender dear ones, and think of them ever after with smacking memory?

It is true, indeed, that, upon the whole, Fijian gastronomy leers more toward the tender sex than toward that which in our country wears the trousers uncrinolined.  But, we submit, is this a fair objection?  Why is the tender sex more tender? Lately, when an orator had strongly expressed himself against the maxim of patriotic office-hunters,—­“To the victor belong the spoils,” he was very logically asked,—­“And pray, Sir, to whom should the spoils belong, if not to the victor?” So we would ask, should any one complain of girls being thus economized by men,—­“Who, in the name of common sense, should, if not men?  Would you have them perform that sacrificial duty for one another?”

But whatever may be thought, by some of our lovely readers, of this last argument, (which henceforth may be termed argumentum marcianum,) and which, in the case before us, will always be an ex parte argument, all will agree that no objection can be taken to making repasts on porcus longus once fairly killed,—­for instance, on heroes stretched on the battle-field.  This was the cogent argument of the New Zealander, after baptism,—­used in discussing the topic with the Rev. Mr. Yale.  Willing to give up slaughtering fellow-men for the sake of eating them, he could not see why it was not wicked to waste so much good food.

If it were objected, that, admitting the making of your enemy’s flesh flesh of your own flesh would necessarily lead to skirmishes, “surprise-parties,” and battles for the sole purpose of getting a dinner,—­to a sort of pre-prandial exercise, as in fishing,—­we would simply answer, “Too late!” Our friends who desire the reopening of the African slave-trade declare that they wish to buy slaves only.  When statesmen, and missionaries, and simple people with simple sense and simple hearts, cry out to them, “Stop!