28 Ohservations on Tasmanian Statistics. 



diminished population of the last three years ; hut much 

 more to the prosperity of the colony generally, and the 

 ■withdrawal of the inducements to crime against property 

 from the ahundance of employment at high, not to say 

 exorbitant, rates of wages. 



Table 81 is the Sheriff's return of the executions which 

 have taken place for a similar period, and is not quite so 

 favourable ; the number of ariminals executed for the first 

 five years being CI, and for the last 47, or a reduction of 

 22' 9 per cent. If crimes against property have diminished, 

 crimes of violence it is to be feared have increased, attri- 

 butable to the very prosperity itself enjoyed by the colony 

 from the excesses and lawlessness produced by extravagant 

 wages, leading to drunken broils and the letting loose of the 

 brutal passions of the ignorant and turbulent. 



Table 32 is a return from the Principal Medical Officer 

 of the number of Lunatics in confinement at the New 

 Norfolk Asylum and the Salt Water River Station for the 

 years 1844 to 1853. The results of the medical treatment 

 adopted are exhibited in the several columns of " discharged 

 cured," " discharged improved," " died," and remaining sup- 

 posed incurable. The return stretches over a period of 

 nine years only, omitting 1844. Adding each column to- 

 gether, and taking the mean, it gives an average of 208 

 patients kept in confinement, and 60 as the average number 

 admitted annually. Of the total, the discharged cured are 

 12'4 per cent.; the discharged improved, 1"4 per cent.; 

 and the deaths 8-6 per cent, annually upon the average of 

 the nine years. Again, of the whole number, the average is 

 66 per cent, of convicts ; and of these the proportion is as 2 

 males to 1 female. Of the free, in like manner, the average 

 proportion of males is 62'4 per cent. In a note it is added, 

 that on the 31st December, 1853, there was a grand total of 



