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FL661338
Lecture on the Aboriginees
of Australia
Permit me Mr Chairman, Ladies & Gentlemen,
to make a few preliminary ob-
servations in reference to the Abori-
ginees of Australia - the subject
I have promised to discuss, before
I proceed to the various particulars
which may deserve an inquiry respecting them.
And first I would [indecipherable] you,
lest you or some of you should
raise your expectations too high as
to the interesting information you might receive respecting them. A poor, widely and
thinly scattered race of wandering
unsettled and uncivilized habits as
are the Aborigines of this country can scarcely afford much of interest
either to be instructive as or to amuse or to satis-
FL661340
fy our curiosity, [more particularly when
it is borne in mind that they are rather
reserve towards Europeans]. Still I would
add, should some of you form too low an estimate of the Blacks of this country
as to being so utterly degraded; ignorant as
hardly worth our inquiry, there is no
human race so deeply sunk or so utterly
savage as act to present some few features
of interest. These may yet be traced
in all the races of the earth, however
degenerate certain assimilations to the
rest of the human family, some kindred
feelings and sympathies and desires, certain qualifications and susceptibilities, intellect-
ual and other faculties, together with some
failings, infirmities and inherent evil
propensities which all prove tend to prove that they partake of the same nature as ourselves
that they are our kindred. Indeed those who
have studied the human races more carefully