174 TRINIDAD. 



opinion, a very injudicious line of policy. That policy has for its 

 principal supporter and organ, our present attorney-general, 

 backed by a few interested and short-sighted individuals. They 

 contend that the habits and feelings of the inhabitants must be 

 purely British, and consider it as a taint in those who, though not 

 the less loyal to their adopted government, do not exhibit them ; 

 thus making no allowance for the inborn predilections of ancestry, or 

 of fatherland, and acting in a manner to inspire the people with an 

 aversion to those very habits, and an alienation from those feelings. 

 They account it almost a crime, on the part of foreigners, to be 

 unable to speak a language with which the latter are unacquainted ; 

 and yet they have never even encouraged the establishment of 

 schools in those parts of the island wherein, from the altogether 

 foreign elements of the population, the English language is totally 

 unknown. This is naturally regarded, by the majority of the natives, 

 as a gross injustice. The entire population of the island, accord- 

 ing to the census taken on the 1st of July, 1851, was estimated at 

 69,600 ; of which 36,631 were males, and 32,969 females. It 

 was classed as follows : under 10 years, 16,724 ; from 10 to 20, 

 10,667 ; from 20 to 30, 16,608 ; from 30 to 40, 12,820 ; from 40 

 to 50, 6,575 ; from 50 to 60, 3,373 ; from 60 to 70, 1,797 ; from 

 70 to 80, 704; from 80 to 90, 237; above 90, 94. Average 

 number of births, 2,441 ; of deaths, 2,669. The national distri- 

 butions were as below : 



Natives of Trinidad 40,584 



Natives of Africa 8,150 



Natives of Europe 1,508 



Natives of Asia 4,200 



Emigrants from other parts 15,158 



Total 69,600 



The few aborigines yet remaining in the colony are leading an 

 isolated life in the forests, depending for their subsistence upon 

 hunting and fishing, using the bow and arrow in preference to 

 the fowling-piece, and, in short, retaining their savage ancestral 

 habits precisely as if the light of civilisation and the sun of 

 Christianity had never beamed on their lovely island of Jere. A 

 few families of Indian descent are still, however, to be met with 

 in different parts of the island, all speaking the Spanish language 



