The Fiji Islands have been annexed, and the islanders, as
usual, are passing away. A British ship, it appears, landed there some returned emigrants ill with measles, and these men scattered to their homes. The disease being considered trivial by Europeans, no precautions were taken, but as usual when an inferior race catches an infectious disease from a superior one, its virulence was intensified, it speedily became a plague, and the natives, naturally believing that it had been designedly introduced to kill them off, refused medicine, and rushed into the sea to alleviate the torment of the rash. The bathing produced acute dysentery, and it is believed, as Lord Carnarvou admitted on Thursday, that most of the Chiefs and a third of the population—say 50,000 persons—have died. There is no certainty either that the worst is past, or that the pestilence may not be followed by a native outbreak, against which the Colonial Office has taken precautions. The native constabulary, who are under discipline, have been compelled to submit to proper treatment, and none of them have died ; but though doctors and medicine have been ordered from Sydney, no power exists to compel the natives to use either.
