BRAVE PARSON

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 July 1929, Page 7

BRAVE PARSON

' arrests seven blacks. PERTH, July 17. A daring feat by the Rev. Arthur Haining in arresting seven Kimberley aborigines a few months ago on a charge of cattle killing has been disclosed. Mr. Haining, who is six feet in height, and weighs 15st, has had 30 years’ experience of the natives, and is known among them for his calmness and fearlessness. Unarmed, and accompanied only by a mission boy, he left Forrest River Mission, where he was engaged on reorganisation after the Rev. E. W. Gribble’s' departure for Sydney, and entered the bush natives’ camp, telling them that he wanted seven men who had killed mission cattle. Five natives, after some deliberation, agreed to surrender, but two ringleaders were defiant, and wanted to fight it out. Without hesitation he accepted the challenge, first knocking out one big native with his fists, and then overpowering the other.

When the defeated aboriginal had recovered, Mr. Haining marshalled seven submissive natives and escorted them to Forrest River. Three are still serving sentences in Wyndham Gaol. Mr. Haining’s fame spread throughout the bush tribes, and the day before his recent departure for Perth the aborigines brought in one of their dead with the request that the body should be buried in “God’s land” instead of according to the tribal custom with its strange ceremony.