418 Essays. 
use of tobacco, and its many substitutes, and its many attendant evils, 
especially by the young and females. (8.) Carelessness as to regular food 
and wet thin clothing, bringing on early disease and death. (9.) Their 
exposing themselves in serving and working hard for others, whether in 
whale ships at sea, whalers on shore, missionaries, settlers, &c. (10.) Their 
labouring beyond their strength in their greed after European goods, to the 
continual neglect of themselves; in scraping flax and in raising potatoes, wheat, 
&e., for sale to Europeans, and their bringing the same, with much labour, 
difficulty, and exposure, to market.  (11.) Their selling all their best, 
including all their tame pigs, and keeping only the refuse food for them- 
selves, being stimulated thereto by the price given. (12.) The introduction 
and rapid increase of the horse, strange as it may appear, has certainly been 
very injurious to the native, through their abuse of that noble animal; it 
proving a great means of calling them constantly away from their homes and 
eultivations, especially the young and strong (thereby leaving the work to 
be done by the old and weak), tending to habits of idleness, wandering, and 
dissipation, and of consequent exposure to hunger and wet in travelling 
about, and of want, &c., at home. (13.) Many minor causes attendant 
upon their transition state and the incoming of the settler, such as the 
abandoning of their own rough and dry flax garments for the thin European 
ones, frequent exposure to bad weather, sleeping in wet garments, and often 
in cold damp houses, going in crowds to a distance to large gatherings 
whether of their own or of the Europeans—mission or government), to see 
new arrivals, or things, &c., &c., and there badly provided for, and always 
much suffering in and after returning to their homes. The writer has 
long been convinced that the amount of mortality arising from the causes 
mentioned under heads seven to thirteen has been truly frightful—stealthy, 
unnoticed, and slow, but ever sure. 
64. Apart from their numerical decrease, is the great decline of their 
power and influence, whether we consider the race or a tribe, a family or a 
single chief; and that not only among Europeans, but also among them- 
selves. This has, in a measure, been caused by their decrease in numbers, 
but not wholly or mainly so. The sudden termination of polygamy, slavery, 
and the taboo (tapu) system, without anything to replace the last two, has 
been the chief cause of their decline as a people in status and influence. 
Had some comprehensive mind early arrived in New Zealand, to point out 
to the first missionaries the sure consequence of the utter and sudden 
removal of what then upheld the tribes and nation, unless renewed with 
somcthing equally strong and equally suitable, more cautious and better 
adapted means for preserving them might have been used. However dis- 
_ tasteful these three things might be to an European and Christian, they 
