In 1892, therefore, a Regulation was passed again prohibiting betrothal gifts, and making it illegal to keep married people apart because the _yau-ni-kumu_ had not been presented, and provided a penalty for enticing married women from their husbands. There still remained the magistrate's power to refuse a licence if the relations advanced "reasonable objections," for by the law of custom objections to intermarriage with a tribe of traditional enemies were reasonable. The native chiefs, mindful of their own feelings if their daughters were to make a _mésalliance_, clung to this power of veto, and without their co-operation it was useless to attempt more legislation. And, since there is probably no community in which poverty, or class distinctions, are not obstacles to marriages of inclination, the Fijians have little to complain of. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 74: The information in this chapter was collected by the Commission on the Native Decrease (1891), of which the author was a member.] [Footnote 75: Thus, John X. marries Mary O. They have two children, male O. and female O. (belonging to the mother's group). These marry female X. and male X. (father's group). Their children would be X.'s and O.'s respectively, following their mothers, and, if of opposite sex, could intermarry, although public opinion regards the union as improper in consequence of the near relationship of the parents.] [Footnote 76: Du Chaillu, _Trans. Ethn. Soc._, N.S., Vol. I, p. 321.] [Footnote 77: _Smithsonian Report_, 1866, p. 315.] [Footnote 78: De Mor., Germ., XX., quoted by Sir John Lubbock.] [Footnote 79: We find it stated by Dr. Codrington that there is a remarkable tendency throughout the islands of Melanesia towards the substitution of a man's own children for his sister's children and others of his kin in succession to his property; and this appears to begin where the property is the produce of the man's own industry.] [Footnote 80: Quoted by Sir John Lubbock, _Origin of Civilization_.] [Footnote 81: In these degenerate days the _tombe_ are worn by many unmarried girls who have no right to them.] [Footnote 82: I remember a high chief in Fiji, who had married a Tongan girl, complaining bitterly of the invasion of his privacy by the bride's aunt, who insisted upon officiating as a witness, and relating with glee how, in the small hours, he had forcibly bundled the old lady out into the night.] CHAPTER XI CUSTOMS AT BIRTH It has already been shown that the decay of the Fijian race is due, not to a low birth-rate, but to an excessive mortality among infants. The mean annual birth-rate for the ten years 1881-1891 was 38.48. This compares very favourably with the mean annual rates of European countries, which vary from 42.8 in Hungry to 25.9 in France. In England the rate is 35.3.