TWO SURVIVORS

ORIGINAL PITCAIRNERS

WHO SETTLED ON NORFOLK

ISLAND

CANBERRA, Thursday, only two of the party of about 200 Pitcairn Islanders who landed on Norfolk Island in 1856 still survive. The annual report of the administrator of Norfolk Island states that 2 of the Pitcairners died during the year. They were Cornelius Quintal, aged 94, and Michael Hope Taylor, aged 84. The survivors are George Parkin Christian, aged 81, and Marianne Selina Buffett, aged 78. The present population of Norfolk Island is 1196, the men outnumbering the women by 96. There were [?] births and 12 deaths during the year. The average age of those who died was 66 years.

PITCAIRN ISLAND

How long this singular and interesting community may be able to remain at Pitcairn, is problematical; for Admiral Moresby tells us, in August, 1852, that "the crops on the tillage-ground begin to deteriorate; landslips occur with each succeeding storm; and the declivities of the hills, when denuded are laid bare by the periodical rains." Symptoms in reality appear of an evil sometimes chimerically apprehended at home—population pressing on the means of subsistence. It will thus become the duty of the British Government to deal prudently and tenderly with the little community; not tearing them all, with bleeding hearts, from the land of their birth, and the seat of their sweat, and sympathies, and associations, but assisting them from time to time, as they themselves perceive the inevitable necessity for so doing, to mitigate to the numerous islands in that remote locality, each family, and each member of it, becoming a radiating centre of Christian civilization. At present, they themselves fondly declare; but it must be often with a heavy sigh, as they behold their steady diminishing resources, that "they will not remove elsewhere whilst a sweet potatoe remains to them;" and as for their chaplain and pastor, he is rooted to the spot. As he told Mr Murray, "as long as two families shall remain at Pitcairn, I will remain also." —Blackwood's Magazine.