212 



THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



and at several subsequent periods, an accurate census was 

 officially taken, but I have been able to obtain only the fol- 

 lowing returns: 



We here see that in the interval of forty years, between 

 1832 and 1872, the population has decreased no less than 

 sixty-eight per cent. ! This has been attributed by most 

 writers to the profligacy of the women, to former bloody 

 wars, and to the severe labor imposed on conquered tribes 

 and to newly introduced diseases, which have been on sev- 

 eral occasions extremely destructive. No doubt these and 

 other such causes have been highly efficient, and may 

 account for the extraordinary rate of decrease between the 

 years 1832 and 1836; but the most potent of all the causes 

 seems to be lessened fertility. According to Dr. Ruschen- 

 berger of the United States Navy, who visited these islands 

 between 1835 and 1837, in one district of Hawaii, only 

 twenty-five men out of 1,134, and in another district only 

 ten out of 637, had a family with as many as three 

 children. Of eighty married women, only thirty-nine had 

 ever borne children ; and " the official report gives an 

 average of half a child to each married couple in the 

 whole island." This is almost exactly the same average as 

 with the Tasmanians at Oyster Cove. Jarves, who pub- 

 lished his history in 1843, says that ^*^ families who have 

 three children are freed from all taxes; those having more. 



