206 EIGHT EEV. S. THORNTON, D.D., ON 



by the antiquities (if I may call them so) of the Australian 

 continent, and awakening interest in the history, condition, 

 and claims of its aboriginal population. Again, it is only 

 right to mention that all labourers in this field cannot help 

 being large debtors to R. H. Mathews, Esq., of New South 

 Wales, medallist of the Royal Society of that colony, who has 

 been indefatigable in its investigation. 



So extraordinary is the ignorance still prevailing among 

 educated English people about distant parts of the empire, 

 that it hardly startled me to encounter the other day a 

 gentleman who was unaware that any Aborigines at all 

 remained in Australia ; Avhile it is not uncommon to meet 

 with the entirely gratuitous idea that the Austrahans belong 

 to a different order or species of humanity from ourselves, 

 incapable of evangelisation or civilisation. 



How many Aborigines remain it is imjDOssible to say with 

 confidence, the census enumerator not finding it convenient 

 to pay his calls in the far interior of the Island Continent. 

 That a process of diminution has been going on amongst 

 them for a long time — as among the Maoris of New Zealand 

 — accelerated where they have come into contact or conflict 

 Avith white men, seems believed by all who have acquainted 

 themselves with the subject. It is not difficult to conjecture 

 some of the causes of this decay, but impossible to speak 

 plainly of them. The abominations of heathenism do not 

 bear discussion ; but infanticide, pre-natal as well as post- 

 natal, cannibalism, blood revenge, the killing of a man at 

 every death (which prevails in some parts of the country), 

 and the cruel treatment and excessive labour of the women 

 among the heathen blacks, in addition to the precariousness 

 of the means of life in Mid-Australia, would account in 

 measure for the decrease referred to, wliich is retarded, if not 

 stopped, by the influence of really Christian civilisation. It 

 stands to reason that such decrease, while going forward, 

 would be accompanied by deterioration in the qualities and 

 capacities of the race itself. And a non-progressive race 

 always tends to wither away. Still, the diminution does not 

 seem to have gone on very rapidly. It may be mentioned 

 that twins among the blacks, and even triplets, are common, 

 which leaves some margin for infanticide. And the mutual 

 battles between tribes do not appear to have been largely 

 destructive of human life. 



Wallace says the blacks " must have exceeded 150,000 

 when Australia was first settled by Europeans." He estimates 



