Observatio)is on Tasnianian Statistics. 31 



16s. a day was tlie current wages in the towns, the rate 

 being a trifle less in tlie interior ; and the same proportion 

 holds good with painters, plumbers, plasterers, and quarry- 

 men, whose wages varied from I65. to \Qs. daily. Of course 

 rations are not included. Excessive as these rates seem, 

 they are after all not so very unreasonable when compared 

 with the greatly enhanced cost of provisions and fuel and rent, 

 and indeed of every article of consumption ; and it may be 

 affirmed that a mechanic with a family was much better 

 ofl" with his ordinary wages in the cheap times. 



The next and last return of this series details the several 

 manufactures and trades in operation in Tasmania annu- 

 ally for the last ten years. The enumeration comprises 

 sixty distinct pursuits ; and is valuable as showing the di- 

 rection which colonial enterprise is taking in opening fresh 

 channels of industry. Some remarkable fluctuations appear 

 by a comparison of the returnSj which would almost seem to 

 contradict common experience as to the scarcity of certain 

 classes of mechanics. For instance, in 1853 the number of 

 blacksmiths, bricklayers, cabinet-makers, carpenters, engi- 

 neers, shipwrights, shoemakers, and tailors in the colony 

 appears to have been much greater than in 1850. 



Table 88, giving a return of the diseases treated in Her 

 Majesty's Colonial Hospitals, as it represents rather the 

 results of a single institution than the state of health and 

 disease of the colony at large, needs no particular notice. 



Table 39 describes the number of houses in Tasmania, as 

 ascertained by census taken in 1842, 1848, and 1851 respec- 

 tively. In the first of these returns the total number was 

 7629, built in about equal proportions of stone or brick and 

 wood: in 1848 they had increased to 10,187 or 33-5 per cent.; 

 and in March 1851 the number was 11,844 or 16-2 per 



