We buy the negro who is a slave; what made him
a slave we do not care to know. The pearl in the market does not show
the toil of the fisher." And so the Fijian would properly reply: "Do not
mix up different subjects. I rescue my departed brother from ignominious
decay, and remake a man of him. How he came to depart,--that belongs to
quite a different chapter."
This utilitarian view acquires a still greater importance when applied
to criminals under sentence of capital punishment. Soon after Beccaria,
it was asked, if we mistake not, by Voltaire: "Of what use is the
dead body of a criminal? You cannot restore the victim to life by the
execution of the murderer." And many pardons in America have been
granted on the assumption that no satisfactory answer could be given to
the philosophical question: "What use can the swinging body of the poor
creature be to any one?" The Fijian alone has a perfectly satisfactory
reply.
The missionaries, already named in this paper, give a long account of
the execution of a supposed Fijian conspirator, which ends with these
words: "At last he was brought down to the ground by a club; after which
he was eaten.
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