Death, deportation by the primitive method of setting the criminal to sea in a canoe, fines, and in Samoa itself the penalty of publicly biting a hot, ill-smelling root, comparable to a rough forfeit in a children's game--these are approved.

The offender is killed, or punished and forgiven.

We, on the other hand, harbour malice for a period of years: continuous shame attaches to the criminal; even when he is doing his best--even when he is submitting to the worst form of torture, regular work--he is to stand aside from life and from his family in dreadful isolation.

These ideas most Polynesians have accepted in appearance, as they accept other ideas of the whites; in practice, they reduce it to a farce.

I have heard the French resident in the Marquesas in talk with the French gaoler of Tai-o-hae: "_Eh bien, ou sont vos prisonnieres_ ?--_Je crois, mon commandant, qu'elles sont allees quelque part faire une visite_." And the ladies would be welcome.