numbered in January 1868, 300 souls; the males and females being in
exactly equal numbers. What a contrast does this case present with that
of the Tasmanians; the Norfolk Islanders INCREASED in only twelve and a
half years from 194 to 300; whereas the Tasmanians DECREASED during
fifteen years from 120 to 46, of which latter number only ten were
children. (48. These details are taken from The Mutineers of the
Bounty, by Lady Belcher, 1870; and from Pitcairn Island, ordered
to be printed by the House of Commons, May 29, 1863. The following
statements about the Sandwich Islanders are from the Honolulu
Gazette, and from Mr. Coan.)
So again in the interval between the census of 1866 and 1872 the
natives of full blood in the Sandwich Islands decreased by 8081, whilst
the half-castes, who are believed to be healthier, increased by 847;
but I do not know whether the latter number includes the offspring from
the half-castes, or only the half-castes of the first generation.
The cases which I have here given all relate to aborigines, who have
been subjected to new conditions as the result of the immigration of
civilised men. But sterility and ill-health would probably follow, if
savages were compelled by any cause, such as the inroad of a conquering
tribe, to desert their homes and to change their habits. It is an
interesting circumstance that the chief check to wild animals becoming
domesticated, which implies the power of their breeding freely when
first captured, and one chief check to wild men, when brought into
contact with civilisation, surviving to form a civilised race, is the
same, namely, sterility from changed conditions of life.
Finally, although the gradual decrease and ultimate extinction of the
races of man is a highly complex problem, depending on many causes
which differ in different places and at different times; it is the same
problem as that presented by the extinction of one of the higher
animals of the fossil horse, for instance, which disappeared from South
America, soon afterwards to be replaced, within the same districts, by
countless troups of the Spanish horse. The New Zealander seems
conscious of this parallelism, for he compares his future fate with
that of the native rat now almost exterminated by the European rat.
Though the difficulty is great to our imagination, and really great, if
we wish to ascertain the precise causes and their manner of action, it
ought not to be so to our reason, as long as we keep steadily in mind
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