[“The Aborigines”, The Daily News (Perth, WA), Wednesday 06 October 1909, page 11]
THE ABORIGINES.
LECTURE BY MRS. BATES.
Mrs. Daisy M. Bates delivered a lecture in the Perth Town Hall last night in aid of the House of Mercy and the Girls’ Reformatory, upon the manners, customs, and habits of our aboriginal natives, and embellished her remarks by means of lantern slides and phonograph records. His Excellency the Governor, Sir Gerald Strickland, who was attended by Capt. Kerr-Pearse, Private Secretary, presided over a large, representative, and attentive audience. Illustrating her remarks with lantern views, the lecturer described minutely the details of native life from the domestic, the hunting, the social, the artistic, and the natural sides of life, and by her stories of native superstitions, lent an air of mystery to the inner life of the natives that would be quite unexpected from a cursory view of a native camp. The phonograph records, one of a native conversation and the other of a native corroboree, were both rare and thoroughly entertaining, albeit unintelligible. The lecturer concluded with a description of the life of the natives at the missions, at most of which it had been proved that the native thrived best when allowed to live as much as possible that camp life to which he had been accustomed. At the conclusion of her remarks His Excellency the Governor proposed a vote of thanks to Mrs. Bates for having provided such a pleasant and instructive evening. The information which she had gathered was of very great value, and must be of increasing value to succeeding generations. His Excellency then conveyed to Mrs. Bates the vote of thanks, which was generously accorded to her, and the gathering dispersed.
AB notes:
Once again, Daisy Bates in full flight as a public speaker. I have never read a negative review of any Bates presentation.
