The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-25 00:00:00

to the treasurer, It would only have been fair of the magis-
trate who had written this letter to the papers to state what
a small sum the cost was. (Hear, hear.)
Mr SWIFT said it made no difference in the principle of the
thing whether the charge was £1 18a 3d or £l3O. It cer-
tainly was most improper in the Chairman to print and cir-
culate at he public expense statements maligning a large
portion of her Majesty's ouljets.
The CHAIRMAN said, if Mr Swift would point out to him
a single statement in those remarks maligning any one of
her Majesty's subjects, he would withdraw it.
Mr SWIFT repeated that there were statements in the
pamphlet which were completely inaccurate, and which
grossly maligned persons of the Roman Catholic religion.
It was most improper that such statements should have
been circalated with the county papers.
Captain MORLEY, and several other magistrates, said
they had received theirs quite separately from the county
papers.

The CHAIRMAN explained that a few had been sent out
with the county papers, but the rest ho had sent out him•
self.

Mr Cox said he was satisfied with the explanation, and
the subject dropped.
After some other business had been transacted, the Court
adjourned.

Ethnological Society.

The second meeting of the present session of this
attractive society was held at St. Martin's-place on
Tuesday evening, Mr I. Lubbock, F.R.S., presid-
ing, when papers " On the Present State of Da.
homey," by Captain R. Burton, and " On the Prin-
ciples of Ethnology," by Mr J. S. Prideans, were
read.
Although the subject of Dahomey has been lately
brought before the public by Capt. Burton's book,
there was much matter in the paper for lively dis.
mission. The kingdom of Dahomey has been for so
long a period notorious for the alleged inhuman
rites incident on the accession of royalty, and on the
annual commemoration of these events, that all
authentic and reliable information possesses more
than ordinary interest; and the paper communi.
cated on this occasion was the result of two visits
in 1863 and 1864, and treated chiefly of the great
custom, the precedence given to women and their
employment as troops, and certain physiological
characters of the natives. Since the first notice in
1724, by Mr Bullfinche Lambe, Dahomey has been
the theme of copious writings and exaggerated
accounts of sanguinary barbarities. The empire
was founded soon after by 1620 by Da, the youngest,
or second son of the King of Allada, within the
domains of the King Awesu, the province of
Uhwawe. The extent and population Capt. Burton
also considered to have been grossly exaggerated in
the published accounts, and not to be more at the
present time than 36,000 square miles, contain-
ing 150,000 inhabitants, of which four•fif;hs
were women and children—a population, not one-
third of what the land would support.
Captain Snellgrove, in 1726, was the first
Englishman that visited a Daheman monarch,
since which time the practice of visiting the King
has been regularly kept up. The stranger lands
upon the beach of Whydab, congratulating himself
upon escaping the sharks aed the breakers. He is
then escorted with great ceremony to the town it-
self, about 50 miles from the shore. It is a large
but decayed settlement, and has recently been
nearly entirely destroyed by fire. With respect to
the grand custom, as the sanguinary rites per..
formed on the accession of a new monarch to the
throne in honour of his deceased ancestors are
termed, Captain Burton gives a more moderate. ac-
count than we have been in the habit of hearing.
In 1791 Mr Hogg and Captain Fayrer reported
these ceremonies as lasting three months, with a
sacrifice of not less than 500 men and a like num-
ber of women and children ; and in the last instance,
in 1860, when Gellele, the present Sovereign, suc-
ceeded his sire, Gizo, he was reported to have pad-
dled himself in a canoe in a tank filled with the
blood of the victims. Although we know from the
missionary accounts that the slaughter was suffi-
ciently awful, there can be no doubt the statements
which were propagated at the time were greatly
exaggerated, and that the latter adjunct to the sto-
ries had no other foundation than the digging of pits
of about four feet square for the reception of the
blood, of the victims, who, moreover, are at both
these grand customs as well es at their annual corn.
memorations entirely criminals under sentence for
capital crimes. Upon every ordinary death an in-
quest is held for the purpose of ascertaining that it
has not occurred through violence. The time of
execution is during the hours of darkness; and of
these "evil nights" there were two in January,
1864. The public stay within doors under pain of
death, and the King personally superintends the
executions, the Premier, or "Mingan," and the
" Men," or second Minister, also taking part
in the tragedy. After death the bodies are
exposed in the market place. But it is not at these
" Customs "that the great loss of life takes place.
Whatever action, however trivial, is performed by
the King, it must be reported to his sire in the
shadowy land, and a victim—almost always a
captive—is chosen to convey the message delivered
to him. An intoxicating draught of rum follows,
and he is dispatched in the best of humours. Capt.
Burton had heard of only one case where the victim
had objected to lose his life, and although on the
last occasion of the annual custom Captain Burton
procured the pardon of half the victims, not one
thanked him. There is another peculiarity—the
corporeal duality of the King, worthy of notice. The
Monarch is two kings in one—the King of the city
and King of the bush and country folk. Pre.
cedeuce is give❑ to the women over the men, and
the King has a considerable army of Amazons, who
are dressed in male uniform. When young they are
compelled to dance and take other violent exercise,
which renders them somewhat lean, bat as they
advatce in years they increase in weight, and
many of them strongly require the treatment of
Mr Ranting. Of the elephant huntresses, the bravest
of these women, 20 have been known to bring down
at one volley seven animals out of a herd. At the
attack in March, 1864, upon Abeokuta, these fe.
minine soldiers were not conspicuous for their
valour, but much may be said in extenuation on
their total want of scaling ladders and other neces•
eery military appliances.
In the discussion Mr Galton made some admire
able remarks on the commercial position of this
large negro kingdom, and the chief causes of the
interest taken by Europeans in the improvement of
its condition.

A second paper, "On the Principles of Eth.
nology," by Mr J, S. Prideaux, was read. The
want of precision in language, the dis-
cordance of opinion, the absence of order and
method, so different from the regular and pro-
gressive growth of a system of ideas that has once
attained a firm basis of truth to rest upon,
in the author's opinion, proclaimed that in
ethnology, the reign of chaos had not yet ended.
When so many industrious and intelligent workers
have laboured so long and effected so little of a
durable character, it excited a misgiving that their
efforts had not been made in the right direction. In
the first place, no science is possible without preci-
sion of language. Mathematics offer an admirable
illustration of the value of such accuracy of terms.
On what foundatiocs do the ethnological doctrines
of the day regarding the populations of Western
Europe rest ? They are an attempt to interpret the
phenomena these populations exhibit by the narra-
tives and traditions of the histarical period; in other
words, man caving probably existed many hun-
dreds of thousands of years, the varieties of features
he presents are treated as the out-growth of the last
20 centuries. Celt and Saxon aro examples of mere
sounds with vague and uncertain meanings. The
task that lay before ethnologists, the author thought,
was to study that which exists at the present time,
and to endeavour to recognise the numerous types
effered.on all sides by nature to our view. Amidst
all the amalgamations of races that have taken place
nothing is mare certain than that types of great
antiquity are always present in considerable num-