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Show ALL EAGER FOR NEWS. London War Office Is Unable to Appease Ap-pease the People. London. Jan. 24. The war office was besieged at an early hour this morning and the clubs and other resorts liable to receive early news have been crowded crowd-ed with eager inquirers. It is generally recognized that the Boer position, if ever taken, can only be captured at a tremendous cost. A dispatch from Pretoria, dated Tuesday, Tues-day, Jan. 23. somewhat amplifies the dispatch of Monday, Jan. 22, from the Boer head laager, cabled to the Associated Asso-ciated Press last evening. It says: "Four or five times during the day the British replaced their wearied soldiers sol-diers by fresh ones. The Boer casualties casual-ties to date are one man killed and two slightly injured. Our men are in excellent ex-cellent spirits. There is a large slaughter slaugh-ter of the British. General Botha is now in sole command. General Cronje having been sent elsewhere." The same dispatch, evidently refer ring to tne situation ai joienso, says: "One of the large Boer Maxims was temporarily disordered, but was soon repaired. The British north camp is in confusion. People are observed trekking trek-king aimlessly in all, directions." As the afternoon progressed, the excitement ex-citement on Pall Mall reached a high pitch. But the war office officials reiterated re-iterated at 3:30 p. m. the oft-repeated statement that "nothing had been received re-ceived from General Buller." The suspense was increased by the belief that General Buller would have never published his intention to attack the Boers on Spionkop unless satis-lied satis-lied that the assault would be carried out before the news could be published, and it was fully anticipated that the news of his success or failure would reach London in a few hours at the most. The cabinet ministers called at the war office after lunch to ask for news. |