AN EDUCATED BLACK-FELLOW

Evening Star, Issue 19003, 27 July 1925, Page 8

AN EDUCATED BLACK-FELLOW

IN A NEW ROLE David Unaipon, educated aborigine, missioner, lecturer, “ author,” and “ inventor,” has been received into many high places, and has occupied many pulpits since he arrived in Sydney irom South Australia. Recently (according to the Sydney ‘ Guardian ’) in a new role ho occupied the witness box at Kogarah Police Court. . Ho proceeded against Bessie Giles, a young and attractive widow, for unlawful detention of a number of parts and the plan of his invention. This invention Unaipon claimed would knock to pieces the accepted law of gravitation and solve the problem of perpetual motion. Ho assessed his loss at £ls. Mr W. B. Simpson appeared for complainant, and Mr R. D. Meagher for defendant. Unaipon bowed graciously to the presiding magistrate, Mr Longfiejd smiled his acknowledgment when referred to as a man of wisdom, and was careful to pjcseiro to the last degree the dignity of the court. His occupation, lie said, was that of a “ writer for Angus and Robertson.” Ho met Mrs Giles at the Bnnksia Free Church, where he was lecturing. According to Ids story, she suggested that he should give her the parts of tho invention for safe-keeping, because a man named Sacliisthal was prejudiced against him, and she feared the loss of the invention. BOOMERANG FOR KIDDIE. The “inventor” wanted the widow to return him his perpetual motion pet, hut she didn’t. Then lie sent her a solicitor’s letter, hut she treated it with contempt.

“Later,” Unaipou said, “she told me she didn’t bother reading it, as her word was as good as mine.” As an act of grace, he said, he had presented the little widow’s son with a boomerang; “not,” he added, “ to win the mother’s ahection.” Later on Hnaipon (the defendant said) found himself inviting Mrs Giles to accompany him to Cromilla, La Pcrouso, and Tnronga Park. “But,” suggested Mr Meagher (for the defendant), “the young widow always insisted that her six-year-old son should go, too.” Came a time when the outdoor trips stopped. When Mr Meagher talked of Unaipon's matrimonial washes, the aborigine said ho wasn’t altogether in love with Mrs Files. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “ from some accounts I read in the papers I can hardly say what marriage is.” “ ‘Didn’t the laws of attraction gravitate you to the young widow very often?” asked Mr Meagher. Unaipou wouldn’t admit that they had. “ Didn’t yon propose marriage to her at La Perouse?” —No. “Nor at the Zoo?”—No. “ Didn’t you drop the law of gravitation and propose to her the law of matrimony at the Zoo?”—“Oh, no, sir; not at the Zoo!” Mr Meagher; “Seeing that you had already knocked our Newton, I thought that possibly you also had the goods on Darwin.” Uunipon admitted that if he had proposed marriage to the young widow it was “on her instructions.”

HIS MEANING BOW. The S.jL : “That menus she proposed to you?” Unaipnn bowed and smiled graciously. Hut ho. wouldn’t admit having told Mrs Giles that by September, 1924, millionaire engineers would bo like paupers alongside him. Nor would ho admit that the young widow’s attractiveness was “ anything out of the ordinary,' 1 The “inventor” looked grave when Mr Meagher showed him this letter, signed by John 11. Sexton, lion. _secretary Aborigine Friends’ Association, South Australia; — “Your letter addressed to the Point M‘Leay Mission was sent to me. “In' reply thereto I beg to state that David Unaipon was born at Point M‘Lcay and educated at that station. His mother is still alive, and lives at the station. “ Ho is a married man, and, according to his wife’s statement to me, he has not sent her any money to support her since ho left this State. He has a sou about seventeen or eighteen, and ho is also living at Point M’Lcay, “It is sufficient to say that David Unaipon does not possess the confidence of this_association.” The aborigine could not understand how Mr Sexton came fo write such a letter, but ho wouldn’t say Sexton wasn’t a truthful man. Unaipon admitted that on one occasion lie hud been taken to the Clarence Street Police Station. Said the Magistrate; “I have heard all I want to hear. I believe the woman. Case dismissed.’ a* 1