No. 4.] LESSONS FROM THE CENSUS. 75 



change the growth of difterent localities. A comparison of 

 birth rate in these separate States will go far to show what 

 has been the emigration from one State to another, and 

 how largely this factor affects the growth which we have 

 seen. 



A significant item from the new census, and one which 

 calls to mind the stirring events of the last few years, is that 

 which records the population of Hawaii. A bulletin of the 

 census just issued gives the population of that new territory, 

 as of June 1 last, 154,001. This shows a growth of 41 per 

 cent since the census taken in 1896, and is the largest per- 

 centage of growth indicated in any of the twelve censuses 

 of the islands taken since 1832. There was, in fact, a steady 

 decline in population between 1850 and 1870. During the 

 forty-three years ending in 1896, the pure-blood natives had 

 decreased from 71,000 to 39,500, and there is no reason to 

 believe that this decline has been checked. The causes of it 

 are the same as those which have decimated other islands of 

 the Pacific. The native Hawaiians, as most aboriginal 

 peoples, are very susceptible to contagious diseases. One- 

 fourth of them died of measles in 1848, and they are great 

 sufferers from leprosy, although this dreadful disease is now 

 being held in check, and there is good prospect that it will be 

 stamped out altogether. The largest cause, however, for the 

 decrease in numbers is the growing frequency of marriage 

 with foreigners, — Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese and Ameri- 

 cans. The Hawaiians are destined to lose their identity as 

 a distinct branch of the Polynesian people, and the increase 

 in population which has been noted is due entirely to the 

 influx of foreigners from Asia, America and Europe. The 

 only city of the island of any size is Honolulu, which now 

 has a population of 39,306 persons, and has nearly doubled 

 in the last decade. To-day it is the metropolis of the central 

 Pacific, the great way station at which converge the routes 

 between Asia and Australia on the one hand, and America 

 on the other. The government of Hawaii, as a Territory of 

 the Union, is a problem in administration whose solution 

 will be watched with great interest. The government insti- 

 tuted there last March, in consequence of the passage of the 

 territorial bill through the two branches of Congress, took 



