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Show Botha's Heroic Assault. T'E BLOOD tingles in the veins of every liberty-loving American as he reads of the gallant assault made by Louis Botha and his commando com-mando upon the British at Bethel, in the southern Transvaal. Hitherto, owing ow-ing to the fact that one Boer was expected to knock out ten of the enemy, so vast was the disproportion of soldiers sol-diers in combat, the burgher took aim and shot behind the shelter of a friendly kopje. Now, however, he swoops down upon the British like an eagle darting from its eyrie and engages en-gages his enemy at close quarters, regardless re-gardless of the numbers opposed to him, regardless of big guns and the murderous paraphernalia of the best equipped army Britain ever sent into the field. When a reliable account of the battle bat-tle of Bethel reaches this country, an account divested of the censorship of London, it will be found as full of heroic incident and dashing bravery as ever inspired a poet to write of BaJ-aklava BaJ-aklava and the charge of the six hundred hun-dred under their Irish leader. TVlO TiriticVl Vio-l-r, Vinoctorl oil oIa.. that Tommy Atkins stood out in the open and dared his opponent to show himself. The tune has changed. It is now the British who take the opposite oppo-site side of the kopje and wait for the attack of the burghers, as was done in the fight at Italia, on the borders of Zululand. While placing, no low esti- j mate upon the fighting qualities of the British soldier, no unbiased observer of military events will claim that the trained Englishman is superior to the untutored burgher in the field. Nothing Noth-ing can resist the impetuous bravery of a man thrice armed because his quarrel is just. It was thus in the war which achieved American Independence. Inde-pendence. It was ever thus in the history of the nations of the world. So long as the Boers have exhibited such vitality in the face of an army as large as that which Napoleon overthrew over-threw Europe, the nations of the world, in the name of humanity, should stay the hand which hs been a curse to every land that Britain has invaded. The first to interfere, by every pledge given to liberty and by every drop of blood shed for a government of the people, should be these United States of America, because, what freedom we now enjoy came through defeat of the tyrant whose descendants were routed by the Boers at this last battle in the Transvaal. There is hope for the struggling burghers so Jong as Louis Botha and Christian Dewet plan their rugged campaigns. A recent dispatch from Brussels says that Boers in that city in close touch with South Africa declare that the recent disaster to Colonel Benson's Ben-son's column was the forerunner of a vigorous campaign, the season being favorable for swift concentration of commandoes and severe blows against isolated British columns. 4 j |