As to the sanitary state of the native population, I regret to state, not only from the information of several gentlemen with whom during my mission I had an opportunity of conversing, but also from personal observation and inquiry, that they are by no means in that healthy state which one would be led to expect when compared with the advance they have made in other respects. In the former it would appear that they are retrograding, and this decline is especially visible in and near the European towns, and easily attributable to causes, the prevalence of which is more or less detrimental to any body of persons, but felt in a greater degree in a mixed community of Europeans and natives. In illustration of this, I may mention the comparatively few births, while from the census it will be seen that a greater equality of the sexes prevails than was generally believed to be the case throughout the entire districts; and perhaps, therefore, the most favourable conclusion to form is, that the native population is not increasing, or, in other words, that, taking the deaths and births into account, it is likely to remain stationary for some time to come, unless swept off by some unusual and fatal disease. H. TACY KEMP, Native Secretary. Wellington, 15 June 1850. LONDON Printed by GEORGE E. EYRE and WILLIAM SPOTTISWOODE, Printers to the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty. TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE Scanned page images of the original book are available from archive.org, search for sanitarystatisti00nigh. Original spelling and grammar are generally retained, with a few exceptions noted below. Original page numbers look like this: {35}. Footnotes are left near their original locations. The transcriber produced the cover image by editing the original, and hereby places it in the public domain. Quotations extending through more than one line of text were printed with a left-quotation mark at the head of each line. These have been converted to modern quotation style. Ditto marks have been sometimes removed, by replacement of the mark with appropriate text. The book was printed with sidenotes, many which pointed to a specific table in Appendix I. Those which were semantically headings, were converted to headings. Page 14. Comma was inserted after _personal_, in “the improved personal physical, and moral habits”. Page 20. Table A, which originally spread in small print over about 6 1/2 pages, was split into three distinct tables (A1–A3), on the Colony Headings in Column 1. Sub-table A1 comprises Colonies Sierra Leone, Western Australia, and Natal. Sub-table A2 covers Ceylon. Sub-table A3 covers Canada. Then each of the three sub-tables was split into two Parts after column 13, with the first column repeated in each Part. Page 26. Table A. a. was split into two parts after column 11, repeating the first column in both parts. Page 29. Table G. was split into two parts after column 11, repeating the first column in both parts.