| OCR Text |
Show HOW BOERS ARE PROSECUTED. Eifty to Eighty of Them Are Sentenced Sen-tenced at the Same Trial. j There are now two so-called English ' treason commissions traveling through Cape Colony, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal republic, whose duty it is to try Bors and Boer sympathia- i I ers, who are act-used of rebellion, trea- f son or minor offenses against the Brit- j if Ii . crown. One of these commissions j tries the more serious cases, where the t penalty is death, and already it has : sentenced a large number of men to be j shot. The other attends to what might be called misdemeanors, and the pun- ishment meted out is usually banish- i ment to Mirebank island, near Durban. One of the members of the commission j ' . that tries the misdemeanors recently . . wrote to England: "Occasionally we t ; sentence fifty to eighty Boers in 1 r batches in one day. It is an exhaust- ing business. Th work is monoton- ; ous." , i The commissions are formed of three magistrates, wno, in auauion to tne salary they would be entitled to if they were doing ihe work they were appointed ap-pointed to perform, receive So a day and all expenses. Theie are also a public prosecutor, a secretary, and an interpreter, inter-preter, and each man in the party has a servant. They travel from point to point in a special armored train, and there is a company of soldiers to guard them. In addition, according to the let- ter quoted from above, "a retinue of barristers travel in the train, paying j their own expenses and hoping for rebel j briefs." In this country these "barristers" "bar-risters" would probably be called "shy-bttrs." "shy-bttrs." The government provides the I commissions with the necessities and luxuries of life, including wine, and "is generous as to menus, so that we enjoy as many creature comforts as the country affords." Positions in the commissions are much sought after, ..e-spite ..e-spite the fact that life "is very tiring." ; and "the duties monotonous," for the reason that "a post on the treason commission spells promotion." Among the native witnesses who have '" given evidence for the prosecution j against Boers who have been accused of various crimes is Sikanyana, a Zulu, ' I who is some 70 years of age, and who is known as the Zulu Grand Old Man. I He claims to be a descendant of the ! kings of his country. He says he knew j Kruger and Pretorius before him. and was a friend of both. He aiso tells a tale of the Boers wanting to take a favorite fa-vorite white stallion from him for war purposes, and of protesting and saying : that he would rather shoot the animal than permit him to fall into their H&110.3. -i lie nieiiioei s ui me commission commis-sion believed all he said and all the j " evidence he gave, though it was positively posi-tively denied by witnesses for the defense, de-fense, and after sentencing the prisoners pris-oners "commended the old fellow for , hi3 loyalty to the British." |
