Dying Race
p. 43 · Read in the full issue
The Marquesans-A
THAT the population of the Marquesas Islands in French Oceania is rapidly dying out was the opinion expressed by Pastor G. L. Sterling, Seventh Day Adven tist missionary, when he arrived in Sydney by the Makura on August 25.
The number of Marquesas in the Group to-day, he said, is less than one-fifth of the inhabitants of the six islands 50 years ago. At Taiohae Bay at that time there were over 3000 virile natives; to-day there were only 500. The total population of the group, he thought, was now about 2000.
Pastor Sterling ascribed the decline in population mainly to tuberculosis.