OCTOROON WOMAN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23365, 3 December 1937, Page 18

OCTOROON WOMAN

TREATED AS HALF-CASTE DAMAGES AGAINST OFFICIAL (Per United Press Association) SYDNEY, Nov. 16. A woman with native blood was awarded £75 damages in the Alice Springs (Central Australia) Court against William McCoy, superintendent of the Government institution for half-castes. She had claimed £ 250, alleging that she had been unlawfully imprisoned in the institution. . ~ _ . . The woman, Elsie May Geismg, declared that she was an octoroon (seven-eighjhs white), and was therefore not subject to the aborigines ordinance, which forbids the association of white men with coloured women. Her mother, she said, was a quadroon, or quartercaste, and her father a white man. From July 2 to September 30, she said, she was kept at the institution, and was allowed out under permit, only on special occasions. She slept in a dormitory with 56 other inmates, and the doors were locked on them nightly at 9 p.m. Once she was given permission to attend the pictures, and did not return to the institution. Next day she was taken back to the institution by a police officer, and was subsequently prosecuted for having refused to remain there. This charge was dismissed, and she was then released. The defence in the action for damages was that the woman was a half-caste within the meaning of the Act. Dr Reilly, deputy chief protector of aborigines, said that she had been removed to the institution for her own good. He had given the order after receiving a police report on her mode of living.