Utilized as the services of these convicts from India were by the Government of that day, and their being wholly different in their habits, customs, and language from the Chinese who formed the bulk of the town population, it is not to be wondered at that the Chinese felt themselves estranged from them, and kept themselves ever aloof. There were, however, some Chinese of the lowest class who sought to embroil themselves with them, so as to bring the convicts into trouble, but the convicts always avoided a quarrel. They therefore sought other means, and in 1852 they gave out and placarded over the town that the Governor and all the Europeans had left worshipping in St. Andrew's Church, owing to the number of evil spirits there, and had gone to worship in the Court House, and that in order to appease the spirits the Governor required thirty heads, and had ordered the convicts to waylay people at night and kill them. These placards created quite a panic in the place, so that people were for some days afraid to leave their houses after dark. In order to allay the fears of the people the Governor issued a proclamation saying that St. Andrew's Church had been struck by lightning and was unsafe (which was the fact), and he called upon the people not to believe the reports of evil men. Moreover, he offered a reward of $500 for the discovery of any person propagating such reports. This had no effect however, so the leading Chinese merchants were called upon to address their countrymen, which they did in a long appeal, assuring them of the benevolence of the Christian Government, and urging them to have no fear and not believe in foolish reports. In two days the fears of the Chinese population were thus dispelled. In 1875 a similar "head scare" occurred during the construction of the "puddle trench" for the new impounding reservoir. This was a work of considerable difficulty, and some superstitious natives circulated a report that it could not be done without "human sacrifice," and that the Government were looking for "heads" to put into the trench, and the alarm for days was so great that people would not pass along Thompson's Road adjoining the reservoir after dark; and even the "dhobies," or washer-men, in the stream adjoining the puddle trench, hastened into town before dusk. Similar so called "head scares" have occurred in Singapore up to even the present time. It is not easy to define what has led to this superstition in the native mind, and it is made more complicated from the fact that it is shared alike by Chinese and natives of India. In many of the Polynesian Islands the practice of human sacrifices we know exists even in our own days, and that chiefs, when they build a house or a war-canoe, offer up a human being; and the Polynesians and Indonesians resemble one another very closely. But such a superstition has not come to us through the Malay race, and we must rather seek for its origin from the Aryan Hindus of India; and as the