Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1879-10-23
Decaying Races.

The native dlcftiulty in New Zealand
again calls attention to the fast-dwind-
ling Maori people, one Of the most re-
markable races of savages with which
Europeans have been brought in contact.
The race will vanish because there are not
enough children born to fill the gaps
caused by death. 1t is curious fact
that this tendency to die out, observable
in so many savage races, does not depend
upon their capacity for civilization, nor
even upon their willingness to abandon
the life of hunters and to cultivate the
soil. Certain branches of the human
race have robust vitality, rendering
them capable of withstand1ng any change
in their condition of life, and causing
them to send up fresh shoots. like hardy
plants, under the most disadvantageou
conditions. OF such races are the
African negroes, who cannot be ex-
terminated, and who are so rapidly In
creasing in all countries to which they
have been brought as slaves as to threat
en- in some instances to swamp entirely
the white and colored population. The
Kaffirs, also, when brought under British
rule in such colony as Natal, show a
distinct tendency to increase. Other
races lacking that robust vitality pine
away and die. The Caribs of the West
Indies, once numbering many millions,
have vanished, leaving only faint trace
here and there of petty communities
formed by escaped negro slaves who mar
ried Carib women. The allied races in
Central and South America have also
dwindled at rate which cannot be &C.
counted for by any amount of war and
massacre. The sentence of death which
seems to lie on whole branches
OF the human race appears to is.
sue from the action of some un-
known physical law, and not to be
avertible by any improvement in their
condition. We have a striking illustra-
ton of this law under our actual observa
ton. Leaving out of consideration our
own aborigines, it is evident that the
whole Polynesian race is likely to sue
cumb under the same mysterious blight
that destroyed the Caribs. As people
they are remarkably ready to accept the
lessons of civilization, not merely with
the parrot-iA acqulescence of the Afri-
can negro. bit with the intelligent appre-
citation Of men who understand what
they learn. The Maoris illustrate our
meaning, but the Hawaiians give more
striking instance of it. The short his
tory of this interesting little people since
Capt. Cook discovered their group of
islands discloses an adaptibility never
before displayed by any community; no
such complete change from utter savage
dom has ever been made in so short
a space of time, and in no other instance
has race taken the initiave in self-im-
provement in SO marked a manner. Yet
tho civilized Hawaiians are dying out as
swiftly and surely as the more barbarous
Maoris. That school Of social philosophers
which is 50 often and so greatly troubled
by the probable future overcrowaine of
human beings on the face of the globe,
does not give sufficient attention to the
rapid process Of dcpopu;ation which in
one quarter of the world equals the in
crease in another. - Yet we NAV be
allowed an occasional short pause in the
hymn Of sell. lauda1on which we are
eternally chanting, in order to consider
our fellow creatures who are whitening
and dying away before our boastful Id
vance; more particularly as the process
in Queensland is accompanied by no very
little trouble and. expenses: -