Show the aitl nders Side of the Story A Swede Tells His Experiences and Those of His Associates in the Transvaal Tremendous Tremen-dous Richness of the MinesHow They Are Worked and by WhomInteresting Account of a Boer Courtship When the Lover Must Leave Berlin Oct 18lIuch has been said on the side of the Boers regarding the present difficulties in the Transvaal and the deeire 5s therefore the greater to have some authentic statement on thC pert of the Iulanders This is given in an account by B J Kaerrstroem a Swede who has lately arrived in Germany after an eighteen years sojourn in South Africa His experiences ex-periences while here and the conditions condi-tions which ho studied face to face are detailfd beion HIs account of the unreasonable leg ulations passed by the Boer parliament will account fur much of the trouble which vas lrie The parliament he says was continually con-tinually passing still more oppressive laws against the Fitlanders to whom t I have counted as many as fifty ox j wagons and as man Cape carts laden with Boer families MY employer did a I gOQd business then selling them his produce Although I proclaimed myself I a Specie I coud not gain their confidence confi-dence for they had never heard of Sweden Swe-den and believed that I was English I While here I aw how the Boers come courting The girl was the daughter daugh-ter of my employer The young man dashed up to the house on horseback 1 wearing new clothes with an ostrich feather in his hat He made his fine j horse prance and caper before the house I ere he descended Then he gave the i lines to one of the Hottentots standing I near and walked up and down in front of the windows of the house well i knowing that the eyes of his sweetheart I sweet-heart were peeping through the blinds iat I him Then he strutted into the 4 4 r L I h J I IN THE GOLD MINES WEIGH TEE BOERS SAY THEY WILL BLOW T3T although they own the largest goldfields gold-fields all political rights were denied Only after an uninterrupted residence resi-dence of fifteen years In the Transvaal tao a man claim citizenship but the taxes and duties are more rather than less on that account Tn 1894 were discos dis-cos ored thenewgold fields nov owneu by the British Chartered company with Cecil Rhodes ns president The Boers who had lived in this section before the gold period sold their land to the company at what were really enormous prices turning it over to what they all the Godless settlers While political po-litical questions in which we had TIO voice did not bother us much we could not but feel indignant at the heavy taxes and umeaaonable regulations passed by the parliament There is nil doubt that these harsh measures against the Uitlanders are intended to make outcasts of them and Dr Jame sons raid had no small warrant though the Boers have not been one jot fairer to the UltIanders since It took place The development of this part of the country is almost entirely due to the chartered comrmnv Still Greater Taxes ° In 1894 the twentyfour Boer lawmakers law-makers threw a bomb into the goldfield gold-field by increasing the tases there The gold diggers were incensed not merely at the increase in the tax but because 3 1 these peasants who had never put their font into a mine should sit in Pretoria and tell us how we should wash and weigh our ore how our props and pits should be constructed nail how the factories and other necessary buildings should be erected All of this aroused angry feelings and called down many a curse on the gray heads of the law > makrrs Many a claim was given up at the Kaap and when the agent of th > parliament oanie on a trip or inspection i in-spection through the gold fields he traveled with an escort of twenty trusties and was glad to escape with a whole skin Bad as it was to know l A that the millions we paid every year I for the privileee of working so hard r went where our oppressors wished and that we hed no voice in the disiiibu I tion it was still worse to have these Bows who used th We81th that we do ll1fEl i Uitlanders earned for them tell j us how we were to do what they did not understand Here is a copy of the license issued i Ito I-to us later by the Boer authorities i when we were at work In the Transvaal Trans-vaal From It it will be seen that we I v ere taxed almost 10 sterling for each I month besides onethird of all the i products of the mine Here is the license i to li-cense 1 License I For Xo 1C1 I The Swedish subject E J Kaerr ptroem in the district of the Sheh Gold I Washing Stock company block No j 1014 stretching along the AVinterfalls river 500 meters long and ten meters broad from point A12 on the north to the south to be worked which discovery discov-ery which produces gold quartz and is know as Hudsons claim is So be divided into ten claims for which the owners are to pay a tax of onethjrd of I the entire yield and 9 lOc per month into the treasury of the company from and after tnis date Barberton April For the Sheila Stock Company D BOIEVE c C CRUSTON They Hate the English So soon as I had an opportunity to make the acquaintance of the Boers I found that they were hospitable to a < stranger who understands their language lan-guage and customs but an Englishman is seldom welcome on their platz or farm The English know this and therefore there-fore call themselves Welshmen for the ignorant Boers do not know that Wales belongs to Great Britain The Boers hold to ancient methods and customs with the greatest conservatism They waiit no industries but farming and cattle raising and miners and mining arc regarded mistrustfully as indeed Is I 4 anyone who docs not support himself I L as the forefathers of the Boers did braising y b-raising cattle All other productive employment r em-ployment lies in the hands of the Uit lander and this causes no little unrest among the conservative Boers r On the farm where I have found employment em-ployment after the excessive taxation had driven ire out of the mlnlngbusi t ness great meetings were held in a barn which erved as meeting house I house and first shook hands with tante the mother and said guten tag good day The same he did with oom the father and then at last spoke I to the girl jind her sisters and brothers A Boer Courtship I Oom said onlysi > take a seat < jand tjien tbere was complete silence 1 whihL llt tea until tlie bowl of coffee j was brought in Then each in turn I spoke a few words Oom asked how everything was at the huis home i and then we heard ell about the health I of each one n the family how the cattle cat-tle and the crops were doing etc All I the time we were drinking coffee At last the suitor arose and handed his chosen bride the lachergoot confectionery i confec-tionery which she blushing and i laughing accepted I This was the critical moment for I if he had refused the gift that would I have ended tho courtship Now there was gayer talk until all but the two I left the room for it wa the right of I the suitor to remain in the front room I I alone with her of his choice But so I that he should not stay to lonr I I Tante1 according to custom stepppd up to the wax candle and make a murk on i with a needle saying that the I isit might last until the candle burned thus far This was a command that I the most lovesick swam dare not t1s1 rogard I The Ber with whom I lived had 1 two farmhouses one of stone on the hochvet that is on the table land I j wheie he lived with his herds in summer sum-mer the other smaller hut well built on the 1nv land was inhabited from lw May to September the winter in this fountry The furniture was simple b I yellow wood without any carvings or I int a profit of threequarters of a pound I per ton of oie Occasionally the Yen are purer and sometimes nuggets Nuff of sometme pure I gold are found The private jiu dual sets his hopes on this kind of 11 1 j hut they are few and far between Jm the Transvaal Still if hexces fipd one it may ute him a millionaire in a min The Tr svaa Gold Fields On our journey we rode right over I the place in which the Englishman George found a rich vein oTgold a year or so later Arrived at the fields we I found that we could eJCher work for eter fifteen shillings a day for one of the cornnaiTiei cr sell them our orcif we found any We had as equipments one mule tp carry the pack one negro as I helper a small t nt a bottle of nitric acid wooden nfortar with an iron bottom two spades one chisel one drill with iits malitit can meta water bowl and a revolver This was the requirement re-quirement for each man We had gone I to the Kaap as most promising a tableland table-land of several fifty square miles We I blow off what seemed some promising bits of iuoiz puherized them In the mortar and then washed away the dirt I to see if the gold lay there In van was our prospecting for many days i All that we found was the nest of an I i ce > trich from which we secured two fresh eggs which served for breakfast I for our party for two days Here were I gold mine clubs without nuirber where the lucky men might gamble away their hard earned duet but the revolver orne yes did not play S large a part in the proceedings an account q the excellent excel-lent ordpr preserved by the Engl = h aulihorXies Disgusted we ere easily fooled by a man known as Mac wtho I I 2V7 I I I 4IX 7j4 y g I TJitlanders and diamond mine owners who are insisting upon the granting of right to vote aflter five years residence ornamentation The sofas and chairs hail seats of leather thongs and goatskins goat-skins the hair side up served as carpets car-pets There were no outbuildings for the cattle only stalls for the horses the cattle yard or kraal was merely surrounded by a stone wall Iwas now again seized with the gold fever ant in company with two brothers by the name of Hudson started start-ed for the gold fields of the Transvaal the news of the great finds there inflaming in-flaming the whole country all but the Boers One fourth of the entire territory of the Transvaal contains gold The first discover of the precious metal here only dlvtes back to 1SSO when Karl Mauch a German traveler found a rich vein in the northern part Many were disappointed disap-pointed jtni following this announcement j announce-ment but Mn 1S87 a new discovery in 1 that richest of all fields Witwaters i I rand was announced and the fetfer red high An Australian gold hunter I lmiJ found a brook with golden Sands i and later had traced veins in the white II quartz One company after the other was formed for exploring and all failed The crash came and mfillions were lost Expert engineers at last came and the fever fell now fieldis being found from I day to day The amount of gold produced pro-duced by the Rand is at least 30000000 pounds weight of gold a year Little of the gold of Africa Is warned out as in California Australia and the Klondike Klon-dike but is i chiefly taken from quartz which must be crushed The large corn panics have called science to their aid bore the stone with diamond drills and extract tho gold chemically In the bet fields a ten t > f ore will produce I about two pounds of gold at an expense I of one and anoquarter pound Icav l promised for a sovereign each t show us good diggings He spent the money I on whiskey and always forget We had been wandering about making I ing tests for several days under lila guardianship but in vain One night he slipped away and when we went to our heartbreaking work of breaking and digging it was on ground where the quartz was rather dark with shining shin-ing specks in it The usual process of pulverizing was gone through with and I was about to throw out the dirt as I worthless when I saw something shining shin-ing in the bright sunlight Yes thereIn there-In the bottom of the pan lay some grains gold The grains were hardly a large as a pin head but it was gold at last I hurried to the camp to report port to my partners I called Hudson asideand showed him the grains of gold that I had found and with true English phlegm he drawled out Better make a thorough investigation before the it all We niggers get al around I sent the niggers off on an errand and then th nitrte I tested the grains with the nit1Q acid finding that they were 1 9Q ner cent pure and worth 4 an ounce Upon 1tu1 further investigation it was s en that the vein of gold mutsuaasear tIle to brook so we decided to tc tea license > ise1 for an entire block of t < mwlainis > r along1 the bank of the brook Time tax on the claim wouldbe 10 u month but we decided to pay i taking oUt license in the name of the Hudfions and mys3 lf and calling the place Hudsons Claim The claim1 was entered m the great chart of the company and ten t Says later we received the Hcgnse pled p-led before I 1 ENGLISH ARMY OFFICERS lXOEFrCERS German Journal Praises TheiriCoui age at Expanse of Itfilitory Senss Frankfoit Gazetted Ignorance of campaign service and negligence in rcconnoltoiing ware the cause of the enormous losses of the English in their previous encounters with the Boers An English major with whom I conversed upon the preparations prep-arations made for the coming war sail to mo I will be end d no doubt tour our advantage becaude forces advantag our orc are vastly superior to those of the Boe S but it will cost us enormous losses for the reason that our generals know lit tie or nothing of war and our ocws i dont know how to lead their troops against a wellarmed enemy I asked him if he did not think that the suppression sup-pression of the purchase of oommte sions the result of which Is i beginning to he seen in the high l ranks ha < 1 f not produce some good effects upon the efficiency of the corps of officers Not at all he said Tho efficiency of our officers would be superior f f in our army the system of favoritism played a smaller part I Is not nierit it is favoritism which in most cases brings about the appointment of a man to some high command Oiir young officers of-ficers enter the army without having the slightest idea of military service If they should be sent out just now in a campaign against the Boers they wOuld no doubt onduct themselves bravely but they would not know when to turn back or what to do with ther men < S > 0 0 After witnessing the recent English maneuvers I myself got the same impression im-pression The officers of every grade have a careless attitude the orders are slack and but little invprtancia is attached I at-tached to their execution and that is i something which I hive remarked on several occalons The ofilters take no I account of the nature df the ground upon which they maneuver and each movement of the English infantry which always fires volleys and never seeks shelter brings ope back to the time of the battle of Waterloo the 9nly battle probably that these officers have studied to get an idea of tacti < sAn s-An English military writer has pointed point-ed out in hits work upon the Brti h army ar-my the dislike of sirtldylng the history of 1 lr which exists among the officers Outside of their canlpaijgna agadnst the Afridis and Soudan they have had no chance to gain any practical military mil-itary knowledge Nepihsr does the training the soldiers present any opportunity of portunity to acquhe a knowledge tactics ThfeEnglCch officer Is careful to put aside everythinjrihaWs military except during the riouljvaf exercise and inasmuch as he cOnfines > his studies to a few of thfe old battles on need nut be surprised that even on a maneuvering maneuver-ing ground he plays a poor part from I the viewpoint of a trainedcDJdler In a word these gentlemn simply play soldiers sol-diers They have an air of indifference I during the hours of service and exercise and show clearly that they den < the uniform uni-form simply to go the title of officer and because it is the custom among the sons of rich families No doubt in their uniforms they are brave An Enclish officer said to me one day that he conftjdeP > j Kt inoompait ible lth his dignJty to kneel down or to prostrate himself before the fire fan f-an enemy He thought that such an attitude might set a bad example to the others because i might be takemi as a I sign of fear The heavy lessee among I the officers in the campaigns against the Boers and even the defeats in the war of 1881 againSt the Transvaal were I the restiil cf a laudable courage but they displayed the utter military incapacity I inca-pacity of their leaders I The English have great hopes of the I efficiency of their cavalry intheir coming com-ing campaign against the Boers and from what I have seen of the English army I do not hesitate to declare that their cavalry is the only arm which comes up to modern military instruction instruc-tion and which surpasses perhaps the cavalry of certain European she s-he cavalry officers also represent a fa vorable impression but this does pot jtjoan that they have any more military knowledge than their comrades in tIme infantry and the artillery Naturally there are generals and other superior officers who can see the I defects of the English military system For instance Sir R Duller who Ig to be coinmariderinchief in the campaign of the Transvaal knows very Vell that against the Boers he Wall have to adopt new tactics After his inspectIon of the troops destined for the Transval mad some little time ago at Aldershot he said Dont stick with too much zeal to your old habits And he reproached the infantry officers for I taking too much care in forming and preserving 1 nrettv lines and for not taking > sufficiently suf-ficiently into account the formation and nature of the ground But I believe that these late lessons will have nb good effect upon the officers > Y J f5 gli ri |