a very large number of the women were married; there
were 9348 marri women in the colony and 576 widows, the whole number of women above eighteen being but 12,015. The births in the year were 2272, or nearly one birth to every four married women—more if we exclude aged women ; but the population increased chiefly by immigration, which brought in more than three persons for every child born in the colony in the same period. The total increase in the year 1858 was 9328. The deaths were only 682, one in every 102 living ; but the population is a picked popula- tion. This small European company of less than 60,000 had in 1858, 146 clergymen and ministers, 74 lawyers, 123 doctors, 206 teacheil, 110 sur- veyors. For their bodily wants, the imports of the year brought them 320,4321. worth of clothing, 159,618 gallons of spirits, 50,608 gallons of wine, 261,096 gallons of ale and beer, 229,7521bs. of tobacco, and 15,8411bs. of cigars and snuffs ; but the 56,049 aborigines might &dye much help in the consumption of these articles. The European population had in their pos- session 14,912 horses (one to every four persons), 137,204 head of cattle, 1,523,324 sheep, and 40,734 swine ; the sheep were nearly half a million' more in number than in the previous year. Of the land in their posses- sion, 98,061 acres were sown with grass, 13,709 with wheat, 12,496 with oats, and 5.574 with potatoes. 141,007 acres were cultivated, 235,561 fenced. 254,605 letters arrived in the course of the year (4-29 per head), and 346,603 newspapers. These colonists exported in the year 3,810,3721bs. of wool, of the value of 254,025/. ; theirtotal exports were 458,0231., of which more than half came to Great Britain, and nearly all the residue went to Australia ; and their total imports were 1,141,273/., of which the United Kingdom supplied 532,596/., and British colonies nearly all the rest. In the following year, 1859, their exports to the mother country increased 30 per cent, and their imports from it nearly as much. Their export of wool to this country rose from 1,065,7941bs. in 1856, to 4,060,5561bs. in 1859.
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