[B41]

When civilized & savage races come into contact it does not seem necessary that there shd be a prolonged struggle & competition for the latter to yield. Owing to little - understood agencies savages in many parts of the world rapidly decrease when thus put into contact. Sproat who has recently attended carefully to this subject (Scenes & Studies of Savage Life 1868 p. 284) attributes much in the case of the Vancouver I. Indians to their being in a few years "bewildered & dulled by the new life around them." by the superior energy & success which they see all around them. "They lose the motive for exertion & get no new native ones in their place «of the old motives." He attributes something to the change of food & habits, circumstances which combined increase the amount of sickness. He says however little stress on introduced contagious diseases; but it shd be remembered that all diseases when first introduced apparently are very fatal as those in the nation whose constitution makes them eminently viable to any disease have not been weeded out during a long course of generations. On the same principle perhaps spirituous liquors are extremely destructive. The cause of the decrease probably does not lie in any one agency; & we shd remember that in a nation which is not increasing in number there are certainly already many causes of destruction at work, so that if a few be added their number will rapidly increase.

Australians wandering & children suffering new disease generated by contact of distinct races.