476 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
to result in improved fertility. The cross between a white woman and 
a Maori man has been so rare as not to afford any data for observation. 
As white women become more plentiful everywhere, the proportion of half- 
castes to the two races is steadily diminishing. Tarly colonists and many 
theorists believed that the two races might amalgamate ; as a matter of fact 
the two races will never mingle, and any infinitesimal influence that the 
white race may receive until that not far distant time when the Maori race 
dies out, will thereafter be at once imperceptible. No New Zealander will 
boast like some Americans that the blood of Pocahontas still flows in their 
veins, or that they are connected with that magnificent race ‘‘ the children 
of the sun,” the Incas. In another century only the prying ethnologist will 
be able to ascertain in isolated spots any partial effect of the Maori blood. 
This utter effacement of the Maori race, its complete inability to engraft 
itself on the European race, is singular, because the Maoris are a sturdy, 
powerful pegple with very distinct race characteristics, which they might 
have been expected to transmit at least in some degree. 
Longevity. 
In discussing the rapid decrease of the race, we must not overlook the 
question of the longevity, the life average, of the Maoris. Spite of all the out- 
cries that medical science helps to depreciate any race, by causing the weak 
and sickly to survive and breed, the average life of a civilized is far greater 
than that of a wild people. The Maori race is one whose average duration 
of life is small: they mature early and wither quickly. Lancaster (‘ Com- 
parative Longevity ”’) suggests that, as savages lead very hard lives and die 
often under the results of accumulated hardships, there may grow up among 
them, as an inherited quality, a tendency to die at early periods; or, as he 
puts it, there may be a “disease Eskimo” or a “disease Maori.” This 
tendency to premature old age and death is marked among the Maoris; 
their boys and girls early attain puberty, early breed, and quickly attain 
maturity. Maori women look old and “going down hill” when about 
thirty, and Maori men of fifty or sixty are not to be compared for vigour 
with Europeans of a like age. This lessened race longevity by limiting the 
nnmber of years during which they can breed, and by hurrying them ” 
their graves, assists in oe the isa disappearance of the race. 
In conelusion, I hope I have ae Be ‘aus that the Maoris were a dis- 
appearing race before we came here; that such disappearance arises from 
an excessive mortality, such stale being largely due to the change from 
- sae letemaan well-aired villages, to miserable, teh ee 
CLS Te ee eee 
= a Ste te ee a ee ee a 
