But when Christianity laid hold of the Maori, and when colonization came after it, there was no longer any reason left for a decrease among the native population, at least, so one would have thought; yet the numbers of the Maori have been growing less and less with startling rapidity. The decrease that is going on now, and that has been going on since 1840, is evidently not owing to war or to want. Other causes for it must be sought for. The first Maori census was taken in 1874, and now another enumeration has been made, showing a considerable falling off since the other. Scarcely an old settler but will tell of districts he knows, where years ago there was a much larger native population than there is to-day. It is evident that, as civilization advances, and as Pakeha grow more numerous in the country, the Maori are disappearing faster and faster. Many causes have been assigned for this. The anti-alcoholists—of whom we have many eminent and enthusiastic professors in the colony—of course, put drink down as the chief reason. I do not think it is, myself. Some Maori may drink themselves to death, but, so far as my experience goes, I have found them to be remarkably abstemious as a rule. Many Maori will not touch liquor at all; many more will take a little, but decline to drink excessively. As one such remarked to me once— "Little rum good. Makee jolly, dance, sing! Much rum bad. Makee sleepy, makee head sore, belly sore, all sore!" A drunken Maori is comparatively rare in the North, at least, as far as my observation goes. I am rather inclined to take medical evidence on the subject of Maori decrease. Certain diseases, introduced by the Pakeha, have spread among them extensively, and work fatally to their constitutions. The women are thereby rendered less capable of maternity, and the children fewer and more sickly. A good deal of sentiment has been unnecessarily wasted upon this matter. We do not need to raise a cry of lamentation over the departing Maori. Let him go; we shall get on well enough without him! When the ordinary Englishman refers to the matter, he says— "They're a splendid race, those _Maries_! and it's a thousand pities they should be dying out so fast!" With this commonly begins and ends the sum of his knowledge of the matter. Now, the Maori is not altogether such an absolutely superior person. Relatively to some other aboriginal races—the Australian black, for instance, and perhaps most of the North American tribes—the Maori may truly be described as a splendid race; but compared with the Anglo-Saxon, the Maori is nowhere. He cannot match our physical development nor our intellectual capacity, average compared with average.