There were in the family 76 convicts, 7 of whom were
convicted of murder. In 75 years, this family cost their country in
almshouses, trials, courts, prisons, and correctional establishments
about L250,000. The injury inflicted by this one family on person and
property was simply incalculable.
In New Zealand, the ratio of those dependent upon the State, or on
public or private support, has gone up from 16.86 per thousand of
population, over 15 years of age in 1878, to 23.01 in 1901. The ratio of
defectives, including deaf and dumb, blind, lunatics, epileptics,
paralytics, crippled and deformed, debilitated and infirm, has gone up
from 5.4 per thousand, over fifteen years, in 1874, to 11.4 in 1896,
declining slightly to 10.29 in 1901. The ratio of lunatics has gone up
from 1.9, in 1874, to 3.4 in 1901. This is the period of the most rapid
and persistent decline in the New Zealand birth-rate; and, coincident
with this period, the marriage-rate went down from 8.8 per thousand in
1874, to 5.8 in 1886, and then gradually rose to 7.83 in 1901. The
number of weekly rations (Parkes's standard), purchasable by the average
weekly wages of an artisan in Wellington province, has gone up from 11
to 16.5 between the years 1877 and 1897.
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