3

to her, proceeded, without the shadow of a trial or a spark of evidence against her, to fine her to the tune of £147 10s. He then sentenced thirteen men of the tribe to receive twenty-five lashes each "because in their position as advisers of the chieftainess they ought to have advised her better than they appeared to have done."

The Chieftainess Toeremetsjani and her indunas brought an action against Cronje and his associates, Schoeman and Erasmus. The case was settled out of Court on the following basis :

"The Government refunds Toeremetsjani the £147 10s., with interest at 6 per cent. from the date of payment by her to Erasmus, and pays her costs, to be taxed as between attorney and client.

"The defendants Cronje, Erasmus and Schoeman pay each of the thirteen indunas who were flogged £25 as compensation, and pay the costs of Jesja and Segole (plaintiffs), to be taxed as between attorney and client."

As a sequel to these lawsuits Messrs. Erasmus and Schoeman, with others, have actually been appointed by the Government to investigate matters" in the district

where these Kaffirs live.

The natives interviewed some time after their return to the kraals stated that they had not received the settlement arranged.

The man Erasmus referred to above is the notorious Abel Erasmus whom Sir Garnet (now Lord) Wolseley denounced at a public dinner as a fiend in human form. In the month of October, 1876, this man attacked a friendly kraal. of Kaffirs. The incident is thus described in a correspondent's letter which is given in Mr. Rider Haggard's book "The Last Boer War":—

"The people of the kraals, taken quite by surprise, "fled when they saw their foes, and most of them took "shelter in the neighbouring bush. Two or three men "were distinctly seen in their flight from the kraal, and one "of them is known to have been wounded. According to my informant the remainder were women "and children, who were pursued into "the bush, and there, all shivering and "shrieking, were put to death by the "Boer's Kaffirs, some being shot, but the majority stabbed with assegais. After the massacre he counted thirteen women and three children, "but he says he did not see the body of a single man. "Another Kaffir said, pointing to a place in the road where "the stones were thickly strewn, the bodies of the women "and children lay like these stones."

One of the more recent cases of wholesale cruelty of the Boers towards a native tribe was the case of the Chief Malaboch. He was head of a tribe which for upwards of 200 years dwelt in the North-Eastern Transvaal. After being continually harried and despoiled by the Boer authorities, he was, in 1894, ordered to remove with all his people to the unhealthy and sterile regions of the Crocodile River. Malaboch resisted. He was immediately set upon by a large Boer commando with rifles, Maxims and cannon, who carried on the expedition with inhuman ferocity. The tribe sought refuge in mountain caves. following account of the closing days of the "war" is taken from the Transvaal Advertiser:

The

"Terrible tales are told by the natives who have given "themselves up. There are scores and scores "of dead bodies in the cave, and that "they are piled up at the entrance so as "to prevent the shells bursting inside. "The sufferings of the wounded must "have been too dreadful for words, for “in almost every case mortification had "set in. Many women have been shot in “their attempts to reach the water."

On the surrender of the tribe they were virtually sold into slavery. Families were broken up and parcelled out among the Boers, wives separated from their husbands, children from their mothers, and all distributed in different parts of the Transvaal to live lives of hopeless toil and misery under the lash of their Boer taskmasters,

These facts clearly show that the belief entertained by the Boers with regard to the natives remain what it was at the time of Livingstone's sojourn in South Africa. He says: "In their own estimation they (the Boers) are the chosen people of God, and all the coloured race are 'black property' or 'creatures'-heathen given to them for an inheritance."

Printed and Published by McCorquodale & Co. Ltd., "The Armoury," London, S.E.

+DELIC LIBRARY

p 79275

LENOX AND
ATIONS

BOER BRUTALITIES.

HOW THE ENEMY

TREAT THE ENGLISH HOMESTEADS.

An Englishwoman's Letter.

The following is an extract from an interesting and pathetic letter addressed to the Times of Natal by Mrs. THEODORE WOODS, whose home, Longwood Farm, had been "visited" by the invading Boers. The picture which the writer presents of the horrible and wanton destruction wrought by the enemy is only typical of the treatment experienced by loyal Colonists throughout the invaded portions of Natal and Cape Colony. Mrs. Woods is the wife of a highly respected member of the Legislative Assembly. More damning evidence of the savage and disgusting barbarity of the Boers has never been written :

"The Free State commando camped on Longwood for four days. The doors were smashed with crowbars. Not a whole one was left throughout the house. Locks were burst, glass panes splintered, sashes wrenched and destroyed to matchwood, and one door was broken in half. Within the rooms was such a scene of savagery and destruction as is impossible fully to describe. Everything, excepting two tables, bedsteads (one was minus castors), a washstand, and an ironbound military packing case, was literally smashed to atoms. There was nothing left undamaged. The piano, a handsome 75-guinea instrument, of which I had been extremely careful, had the candlesticks wrenched off, and above the pedals were seven cuts, evidently done with an axe. The keys were smeared and dirty, and it had evidently been badly abused and spat upon. Plate, linen, and clothing, curtains, carpets, and rugs had all disappeared, as had much of the portable furniture. The sitting-room was strewn knee-deep with our books and papers, and a horse had been stabled therein. The same thing happened in one of the bedrooms, where also an inside door had been wrenched off the hinges and carried away.

Cattle had been shut in the dining-room, and the shocking filth, and the disgusting odours in every room were simply unspeakable. The walls were smeared and torn, and upon one was written in pencil J. L. Fourie '(I believe one of our Natal rebels rejoices in that name), and near it was scratched, evidently with a piece of glass or nail, "Dam England." In the kitchen nothing was left excepting a table, and a hole about 10 inches in diameter had been knocked in the oven of the stove, thus rendering it quite useless. In the pantry, nothing was left but the table and a perfectly new, unused meat safe, on legs. The latter had a hole punched in one side, and the door was wrenched off and mixed up with the débris in a bedroom. All over the floor was a medley of papers, rags, broken glass, and crockery. In the storeroom, all tools, reims, ropes, sheep-shears, bales, sacks, seed potatoes, waggon gear, and sundries, were gone. A handsome military chest of drawers and escritoire combined, brass-handled and bound, had been hacked to pieces, and littered all over the place. A valuable cyclopædia, bound in half vellum, had disappeared, as had some of our better class of books, showing that the robbers were, or some of them at least, educated men, of literary tastes, though it seems absurd on the face of things. The sofa mattress was gone, and the remainder of it was in a filthy state. Oil paintings, pictures, mirrors, Dresden china ornaments, hand-painted vases and plaques, photo frames, lamps, and valuable books and music, all were scattered in a mass of filthy wreckage all over the floors. In the pantry were originally six months' provisions, which I had just sent up about a week before the war broke out, thinking to get them up before the train service would be wanted by the military authorities later. This of course was a splendid haul for the robbers. In the orchard fruit was stripped from the trees, and branches wilfully broken. I omitted to say that among the books was a valuable family Bible, a wedding present, which (Oh, religious Boer!) went the way of the rest, and acted as stable manure.

I have always been given to understand that the Free Staters were altogether a superior class to the Transvaalers. If this be so, I am lost in conjecture as to what manner of man the Transvaal Boer can be. It is simply impossible to believe that any human being of any mental calibre, above a brute beast, could behave as the landed gentry of the Free State have done.

I am sure no one could possibly imagine the sight I am trying to describe. It must actually be seen to realise what the 'simple, brave, honest, and God-fearing farmer' we have heard so much about is really like. No one above the status of a dog could behave as these Boers have done, and a naked Zulu is a perfect gentleman in his habits compared with a Free Stater.”

Printed and Published by McCorquodale & Co. Ltd., "The Armoury," London, S.E.

SIR HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

ON

THE WAR.

So long as Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman is the figurehead of the Party of which he is the nominal leader, he must be -held to be the exponent of its policy.

In the event of an appeal to the Country, he will claim that he has throughout supported the War. It is true that he has not opposed the granting of Supplies. He knows full well that to have done so would have secured universal condemnation. On the other hand, he has never lost an opportunity of carping at the Government, at the negotiations, at the military preparations, or of saying a word calculated to encourage the Boers and their sympathisers.

The following are a few extracts taken from some of his speeches:

There are some newspapers which talk freely of the probability and even of the necessity of war, and the public mind has been much disturbed in consequence. I think it right to say plainly that I, for my part, can discern nothing in what has occurred to justify either warlike action, or even military preparations. At Ilford, 17th June, 1899.

As to war itself, or direct preparation for actual hostilities, I must only repeat here what I have said elsewhere, that from the beginning of this story to the end of it I can see nothing whatever which furnishes a case for armed intervention. In the House of Commons, 28th July, 1899.

Why is it then that the Boers should be so touchy upon this question of suzerainty? It is easily explained. It is quite intelligible to those who have followed their past history. It is because they regard it as the symbol of the aggressive spirit which they detected in our action and of the ultimate designs against their independence which they attribute to us.At Maidstone, 6th October, 1899.

I have said that no one can tell what we are going to war about. I mean by that that no thinking man can give an avowable reason suggested by the history of the case as embodied in the Blue Books for the war with which we are threatened.-At Maidstone, 6th October, 1899.