418 Assays. 



use of tobacco, and its many substitutes, and its onany attendant evils, 

 especially by tbe young and females. (8.) Carelessness as to regular food 

 and wet thin clotting, bringing on early disease and death. (9.) Tlieir 

 exposing tbemselves 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, 

 &c., 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 

 cultivations, 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 mortahty 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 

 something 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 



