Intellectually the Maoris were, Oseba thought, superior to any other tamed savage; but, like other barbarians, when touched by civilisation, they learned and accepted the vices more readily than the virtues. This was noticeable in all civilising movements. Oseba remarked that it was often observed among the Outeroos when speaking of such people, that the "Christian vices" killed them. "This," he says, "was natural, for while it takes time to teach the 'brethren' the real advantages to be derived from the practices of Christian virtue, the 'Christian vices' yield 'immediate returns.' 'Thou shalt not steal' to a savage produces a peculiarly disagreeable confusion of ideas, and the advantages are not readily apparent, but two drinks of whisky rarely failed to impress. This is a custom peculiar to 'Christian culture' that is 'taking.' "To judge by the conspicuous exhibitions of artistic effort and the countless displays by the photo fiend in many of Zelania's towns, a stranger would conclude that the Maoris were the 'superior' and dominant race, though there are but a little over 43,000 in the whole country, mostly on the north or warmer island, and it is said they are about stationary in numbers and in morals." He told his audience that these Maoris, when originally discovered, were a stalwart, brave and rather superior race of savages; that war was the only argument that appealed to their perverted consciences, and he quoted an admiring New Zealand poet to prove the "amiable" heroism of the Maori "ladies." "E'en woman, formed for sweetness, for love, and tender art Here showed the tiger instinct, the hard and ruthless heart; Her's was the task in battle, the wounded braves to slay, And cook the reeking corpses for the feast that closed the fray." "Yes, the Maori women were brave, very brave, but, my children, in all Zelania there was not a mouse. "Of these Maoris, there are several tribes," he says, "who, when free from the meddlesome 'white man's yoke,' are usually engaged in slaying and stewing each other, and, besides carving with their greenstone cleavers their cooked brethren and their own faces, they practised much in wood-carving. In this, while the workmanship is fair, there is a manifest lack of a sense of proportion, that amuses the connoisseur as it delighted the amateur in art. "Like the more common, or at least more numerous and more pretentious white fellow-citizen, these Maoris go to church some, and to school, and to the drink-shop and to jail, but as the Maoris have a little creed of their own, they don't go to church very much. But if the Maori goes less to church, to school, and to Parliament, he also goes less to jail and to the hotel than his more pretentious white British fellow-citizen.