make it really useful to the rising generation of natives and half-castes in this colony."
The Bishop was begged to withdraw his resignation, and so large a number of the colonists joined in pressing this request upon him that he felt bound to yield, but now that attention has been drawn so strongly to the subject it is to be hoped most earnestly that something may be done at last, commensurate with the duty which lies before the colony, a duty long neglected and but lately even acknowledged.[1]
The Government occasionally distributes a few blankets to the natives at the beginning of the winter, and if a doctor's certificate is given to the effect that a native is helpless and ill, he is allowed weekly "rations" by an order from the magistrate. A prison has also been provided on the Island of Rottnest, for such native criminals as have offended against our laws, where they are employed in agriculture; and in the hope of putting an end to that custom of avenging a death by the slaughter of an unoffending person to which I have before referred, natives who had been convicted of observing it, were occasionally hanged.
What we ourselves could do for the aborigines was very little. Missionary work, to effect any good result, must be a person's sole care and occupation, and could not, in any degree worthy of the name, be carried on by a clergyman in the position of Government chaplain in Western Australia. Besides it was plain that any endeavours of ours to teach the natives must end in failure, situated as we were near a town where about nine men out of ten were of the con-
- ↑ By the latest mails we hear that a school is now established for the natives at Perth. (See Appendix.)
