If No Means Can Be Adopted To Check The Evil, It Must Eventually Lead To Their Total Extermination.

By comparing the twenty-seven births in four years with the number of women, thirty-nine, it appears that there would be annually only one child born among every six women:

A result as unnatural as it is evidently attributable to the increased prostitution that has taken place, with regard both to Europeans and other native tribes, whom curiosity has attracted to the town, but whom the Adelaide tribe were not in the habit of meeting at all, or, at least, not in such familiar intercourse prior to the arrival of the white people. This single cause, with the diseases and miseries which it entails upon the Aborigines, is quite sufficient to account for the paucity of births, and the additional number of deaths that now occur among them.

In the Moorunde statistics, given Chapter VI., the very small number of infants compared with the number of women is still more strongly illustrated; but in this case only those infants that lived and were brought up by their mothers to the monthly musters were marked down; many other births had, doubtless, taken place, where the children had died, or been killed, but of which no notice is taken, as it would have been impossible under the circumstances of such a mixture of tribes, and their constantly changing their localities, to have obtained an accurate account of all.

Under the circumstances of our intercourse with the Aborigines as at present constituted, the same causes which produced so exterminating an effect in Sydney and other places, are still going on in all parts of Australia occupied by Europeans, and must eventually lead to the same result, if no controlling measures can be adopted to prevent it.

Many attempts, upon a limited scale, have already been made in all the colonies, but none have in the least degree tended to check the gradual but certain extinction that is menacing this ill-fated people; nor is it in my recollection that throughout the whole length and breadth of New Holland, a single real or permanent convert to Christianity has yet been made amongst them, by any of the missionaries engaged in their instruction, many of whom have been labouring hopelessly for many years.

In New South Wales, one of the oldest and longest established missions in Australia was given up by the Rev. Mr. Threlkeld, after the fruitless devotion of many years of toil. [Note 106 at end of para.] Neither have the efforts hitherto made to improve the physical circumstances or social relations of the Aborigines been attended with any better success. None have yet been induced permanently to adopt our customs, or completely to give up their wandering habits, or to settle down fixedly in one place, and by cultivating the ground, supply themselves with the comforts and luxuries of life. It is not that the New Hollander is not as apt and intelligent as the men of any other race, or that his capacity for receiving instruction, or appreciating enjoyment is less; on the contrary, we have the fullest and most ample testimony from all who have been brought much into contact with this people that the very contrary is the case:

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