charge of infidelity, she no sooner saw the dreadful apparatus than, to avoid torture, she readily confessed every species of criminality they were inclined to lay to her charge. She owned every amorous intrigue with which she was accused, and of which, to all appearance, till that horrible moment, she never had the least idea. She was however condemned to undergo the discipline, which was administered by two ecclesiastics in full chapter.
The King of Fiji and his Wives.
In a recent work on Fiji and the Fijians there is a graphic account of the marriage ceremony or contract as observed in this savage region. The misery of the woman begins directly after the ceremony. If she be young and pretty the old big-fisted wives turn their venom against her and do all they can, by mauling and ill-treatment, to render her as unsightly as themselves. If she be of the brawny sort, as well able to give as to take a thrashing, then she is hated, and all sorts of secret means are used to work her ruin. As may be easily imagined, these domestic brawls occasionally in-
