TRAINING HALF-CASTES

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXVII, Issue 3275, 6 March 1937, Page 7

TRAINING HALF-CASTES

MATRON'S LONELY WORK

METHODS OF TUITION. In the centre of Australia, 1000 miles from Darwin in the north and 987 miles from Adelaide in the south, the Government is training the halfcastes of Australia to take their place as useful citizens (says an exchange). For two years it has been the duty of Mr and Mrs R.J. Jones to help in this work at Alice Springs, where the halfcaste is given his or her chance in life.

As matron of the Alice Springs Half-caste Institution, of which her husband was superintendent, Mrs Jones was called upon to tend to the spiritual, as well as the physical, needs of these people. She has had babies as young as 12 months old to care for, although usually the children are not brought to the institution until they are two years of age. Mrs Jones was recently in Brisbane, en route to Darwin, where she went to join her husband, who was appointed curator of a Lepersarium Island, seven miles from Darwin, and she spoke of her work at Alice Springs. "They are a fine type of half-caste in this district, and the children grow up willing to make the best of life," Mrs Jones said. "Although they have no initiative, they are good workers and rarely disobedient. "Of the 134 inmates at the institution 57 are girls being trained in housework. The girls make all their own clothes, and their daily cooking includes 70 loaves of bread. They may return to the institution on the loss of a position. The boys remain only until they are 14 years old, when they are usually apprenticed on cattle stations. They make excellent stockmen."

Mrs Jones has given most of her life to the service of others. As a young girl she was trained as a nurse during the war, and later spent two years and a-half in Salonica, Greece, and Egypt, and later nursed on hospital ships. After the war she was one of the first nurses of the Australian Inland Mission to work at Victoria Rivers Downs. She is a member of the Royal Victorian Trained Nurses' Association.

our, with a foul stench, the parched camels pushed one another aside in a fight for the water. The 11 camels needed at least 110 gallons of water before all were satisfied.

The next soak, the party was told, was 20 miles farther on, over a series of red-crested sandhills covered by the finest forests of desert oaks-that exist in the reserve. Again the water supplies dwindled, and 40 miles were covered, but the soak had dried up many weeks previously, and the party had to press on again. The camels proved troublesome at night, as they smelt the water in the canteens, and fought to get near. The following day the party reached Inankatar, where they were amazed to find a huge rock pool full of clear rain water.

When the party reached Piltadi, the most easterly waterhole of Petermann's Range, it was decided to rest a week to recuperate, and the party lay down in the shade of a few depressing gum trees and thin gaunt branched mulgas, which comprised all the vegetation the countryside had to offer. The country was barren, with no sign of game. Restive Natives. Again Mr Strehlow had to calm the natives, who had been told tales of horror, of devils who were now the sole inhabitants of Petermann's. The suspense of waiting depressed the spirits of the natives, and the guides grew silent and morose. Relief was general when it was time to push on to the Shaw River. Shortly after the party encountered a few stray aborigines. Mr Strehlow impressed on these natives that they were not to drift into civilisation.

The main quest of establishing contact with these aborigines haying been accomplished, Mr Strehlow turned back.

Speed was essential because of the losg series of treacherous dry stages before the party. At length they arrived at the broad bed of the dry Armstrong River, which flows north before being smothered by the red dunes of the vast spinifex deserts which encircle Lake Amadeus. These deserts are of great beauty. They are covered by great groves of majestic oaks. After a 60-mile dry stage, the party reached the red-domed Mt. Olga, leaving behind the dim blue southern bluffs and ridges among which they had journeyed for so many weeks. A further 100 miles dry stage was covered in glaring sun in almost unbearable heat. After a further week's halt to recuperate, the party reached Hermannsburg, having completed 1212 miles by camel over some of the most inhospitable country in the world.