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Show ' History of the Late Boer War Advance Chapters from Davitfs History, Which is Soon to Be Published. f The history of the late Boor war, as told by an eye witness, and soon to be published, is both interesting and entertaining. en-tertaining. The author, Michael Davitt, p. resigned his place in the British house : 'f commons in October, 1890, as a pro- test against the unjust war. After re signing his membership, he wont, to South Africa, and being an eye-wit-iH-ss, tells whit he had seen. He taysr "This book embodies the facts and information which I obtained in my intercourse with the leaders and people of both republics. It also contains the impressions which followed from a few months' close contact with thorn during dur-ing their unparalleled struggle to retain re-tain their independence. r.-i-iun ui mitriui acknowledgments ac-knowledgments for the facilities given and the assistance willingly tendered to me by members -of both governments during my stay in the Transvaal and Orange Free State, and to numerous officers and officials who supplied me with authentic details of the earlier battles of the campaign in Natal and on the western borderland. i': .0 "England's South African record is t temperately but none the less tellingly considered in the introductory chapter, the author wisely permitting General Joubert's letter to Queen Victoria to be his arraignment of British justice. It . is also a concise resume of events lead ing up to the opening of the war, and prepares the reader to follow intelligently intelli-gently the history of subsequent events. ""In one of the most eloquently pathetic letters ever written, the late Commandant General Joubert told Queen Victoria, in June, rive months before the present war was declared, de-clared, the story of the Boer race, and i of the continuity of her country's persistent per-sistent oppression of his people from -down to the date when he knew that England was once again resolved 1 upon an act of spoliation. lie relates the systematic persecutions which drove the Dutch farmers into the great trek into the abandonment of the country which theyhad. in a sense, created for white men. He told of the m p indignities to which the Boers were I subiected. and the honcless outlook (created for their children in the settled purjH)se of their complete domination at the hands of English officials. It was such a story as a doomed Thraeian I'-ader might have told to a Roman patrician on the eve of a gladiatorial display within the Colosseum." 1 .Speaking of the thrift of the Boers I and their admirable form of govern- 1 inent. together with their progressive i and independent spirit, he shows that tlwy were models which European gov- rrnments might imitate. He states I facts. " " - ' a "No one who wanted to be a witness to the truth could travel through the 1 Transvaal, either before war began or during its earlier- progress, without j Feeing- evidence everywhere of both (I careful and enlightened administration ij in its cities and towns, and of comfort ' and content in the homes and habits of ' the people. Pretoria is a city handsome , in every sense. Its public edifices. ) notably its government buildings and ' "" palace of justice, would do credit to any European capital. Its streets are wide, and are lit with electric light. It pos- sesses as good a telephone service as I any British town of equal size, while the whole country is served with ern- . ' cient railway and telegraphic systems. lietoria impressed the visitor as a w ell-ruled city: bright, comfortable I find clean: furnished with an admira- I ble market and an abundant water 1 He unrlillir flussps WPrp bet ter housed than those of London, Manchester Man-chester or Dublin, while the taxation on wages in the Transvaal was much less than the amount which English workingmen have to pay annually in their own country. "Johannesburg alone, the center of the anti-Boer agitation, would amply vindicate Boer government, and refute the false statements of its worst enemies, en-emies, could the place have been seen by fair-minded men. and all the facts relating to its people, their character and pursuits, have been impartially considered. Here was the center- of the richest gold mines in the world, ' inhabited by over 100,000 white people, and fully 80,000 Kaffirs who were employed em-ployed in the mines of the town and locality. The whites embraced, along with the reputable classes, all the elements ele-ments known to flock to such a center; , men of the worst character and lowest I passions: purveyors of prostitution, ) gamblers,' cheats, sharpers, scoundrels, and loafers all of alien, not one of Boer, blood. Not a single English critic has had the sense of fairness to take account of the difficulties in the ' way of the police and the administrators administra-tors of justice in dealing with a city so inhabited, and containing within its limits more potential agencies, pas sions and incitements to civic and -..Hal disorders than any other city in Christendom. And yet, what was the actual record of Johannesburg in its relation to law and order from 1890 to 1S!9? I assert in all confidence that there have been les murders, less rapes, less serious outrages on person and property, among the whole white population within this unique city during dur-ing these ten years, than in any single city in England of equal population for a like period. Eighty thousand savages sav-ages were kept under orderly control without undue severity, and made sub-L sub-L - ject to civilized laws and customs in i a manner reflecting the highest credit upon the police and magistracy of Johannesburg. Jo-hannesburg. General order was maintained main-tained without any violent interefer-( interefer-( , rnoe with the liberty of citizens (less y bv far than occurs in Ireland today), and when it became necessary to the purposes of the plots and plans of Boer , enemies within their gates to libe i these police and officials of the law. all the cases which the model, moral Uit-lander Uit-lander 'reformer' could place at Sir --txcd. Milncr's disposal forhis indict- I ' ' ,, ment of the state which Englishmen had conspired to destroy, embraced an alleged murder of an Englishman, which turned out to be, at worst, a case of manslaughter: the murder, by undetected rufiian-3, of a lady for her crusade against illicit drink traffic: an attack by a field cornet upon a Cape Kaffir family: an organized disturbance of a Rhodesian meeting, and a few minor instances of alleged failures of justice. These and nothing more.- The meagerness of the list bore eloquent evidence to the success of the government govern-ment which had kept such a place in such order. He Fhows that the republic fostered education, and that during their brief existence of sixteen ' years education naa maae great neaaway Whilst pauperism, pau-perism, which is to be found in an alarming extent in England, was unknown un-known in the Transvaal. He says: A popular conviction was fostered in England that Presidnt Kruger and his 'oligarchy' were either the foes of education or were indifferent to the spread of instruction among the Boers. 'Ignorant,' 'half-civilized,' were common com-mon expressions used about them by speakers and writers who took no trouble trou-ble to ascertain a truth which for the purpose of their argument they were not over-anxious to find. Most of the talk of this kind was? indulged in by persons who w ere probably thinking of the educational centers of Oxford and Cambridge, and of a much more recently recent-ly organized English school board system, sys-tem, -as a proud contrast to the resources re-sources of the benighted Dutchmen of the Transvaal. But these Dutchmen had only fifteen or sixteen years of full self governing existence in which to build up their educational centers and pystem." "Every fortieth person In the population popu-lation of England is a pauper. About one out of every seven working men ov?mhe age, of 60 in England dies an inmate of the workhouse. "There is no pauperism in the Transvaal. Trans-vaal. Relief was sometimes given to poor farmers when their crops were injured by locusts, but it was voted by the volksnad for special reasons. The w orkhouse had no place in the Social svsfem of the Boers" At the beginning of the war the cry of religious bigotry and Intolerance was raised against the Boers. The Catholic church was dragged in as the groat object of Boer hatred. It was I not for' love of the church, for. as Michael Davitt points out, the restrictions restric-tions placed on Catholics by the Transvaal Trans-vaal constitution were not more rigid than those imposed by the British par-, liament. but any port in a storm, and to win Catholic sympathy for the British Brit-ish government, and its opposition to the Boers the cry was raised that the Boers persecuted Catholics. Here is Davitt' s evplanation: 'It is true that members of the volksraad and the offices in the republic re-public were reserved to the community of the state church, Roman Catholics Catho-lics and Protectants not subscribing to the tenets of the Heidelberg catechism, were specifically disqualified for membership mem-bership of the chamber. This was a narrow and reactionary restriction, but it was only thirty years behind the British parliament with respect to the non-admission of Catholics to the house I of commons who were not prepared to I swear, before an assembly of Protestants, Protest-ants, that the oldest faith in Christen-! Christen-! dom was 'heretical and superstitial. Even todayno Catholic can occupy either the t Krone of England, the position posi-tion of lord lieutenant of Ireland (a Catholic country), or that of the lord chancellor In the house of lords, while the king of England's coronation oath is grossly insulting, in some of its expressions, ex-pressions, to no less than 10.000.000 of his subjects who are Roman Catholics. No true friend of the Boer cause defends de-fends the denial to Catholics and others the rights of religious equality. Still, justice requires that the foregoing facts in the religious and social history his-tory of the Transvaal should be borne in mind, and also demands recognition of the fact that the government of the republic from 1S90 to 1899 was surely, if slowly, adapting its laws and institu- , tions to the needs and rights of its new population." "The capitalists who flocked to Jo- j hannesburg, and the upstart rich who i had made rapid fortunes there, were j not the masters of the statesmen and politicians of the little Africander nation. na-tion. They could neither have laws made to suit their own interests and schemes nor purchase a single seat in the volksraad. They had tried and failed. Neither President Kruger, nor his government, nor the Boer legislature legisla-ture could be bribed or bought. Here was a state of things which could not be tolerated. England was dominated by landlords and money mongers; America bv trusts; the continent of Europe by stock exchanges and the UAk..h:i ..otmii.i bv the banks. But the Transvaal was owned and ruled for land and people. This was opposed to all 'enlightened progress," the 'welfare of humanity.' and 'true civilization:' and, therefore, 'Down with the reactionary Boer' became the watchword of. that ardent champion of civil and religious liberty, the capitalist capital-ist millionaire." The writer appeals to the .English historian. Froude, who wrote to the Evening News. Dec. 1. 1884. In the estimation es-timation of Froude the Boer people were devoid of guile and thoroughly honest. .... . "There arc no complex qualities in the Boer people. In one sense there is some truth in the saying of their enemies, en-emies, that they are wanting in. civilization. civil-ization. They are; but It is in the 'civilization' with which we are familiar famil-iar in Anglo-Saxon countries that of the godless culture of refined vice, of divorce - courts and immorality, of drunkenness and prostitution. The Boer is very backward in these modern customs, cus-toms, and is altogether lacking in the accomplishments which can conceal the worst appetites of an educated animalism animal-ism beneath a simulated regard for j propriety and religion. "The 130.000 men, women and cb.il- I drcn of the Transvaal who wore not afraid to fight the British empire could not be nurtured on such a 'civilization.' They are the products of a hardy stock, made tougher and stronger in body and mind by the unique environment environ-ment of their existence. The Boer is neither emotional nor magnetic in his temperament. He is deliberate in thought and in action and rarely influenced influ-enced by passion: cool and calculating in all his acts, whether making a bargain bar-gain in a market or a laager on a battlefield; bat-tlefield; rough in speech and manner, but capable of developed refinement when the training of education brings into play the latent mental forces of a robust and nimble intellect. "The Boers have a strong attachment to land and the life which- its ownership owner-ship requires than -any other love of freedom which are inherited and acquired ac-quired national sentiment of his race. He has all the strong natural traits of a people reared away from the many debilitating influences of city fife. He is absteminous when young, loyal to the obligations of marriage, affectionately affection-ately attached to parents, devoted to the duties of domestic life and naturally natural-ly disposed to the social virtue of hospitality. hos-pitality. "From the beginning and during the progress of the war, the Boers were described de-scribed as rude and sanguinary in ineir wariare. ruouc opinion, manufactured manu-factured by false dispatches and editorial ed-itorial comments, represented them not as soldiers, but as primitive semi-civilized savages who gloried in brutal and inhuman acts toward those w ho became prisoners of war. The true story and real facts as told by British soldiers show the very contrary. After the battle of Elandslaagte, a Lancer, who took part in the fight, writing horns, tells the following episode. His letter was published in the Brighton Argus: "We got a' charge at them; they asked for mercy, but we were told not to give them any, and I assure you they got none. We went along sticking stick-ing our lances through them it was a terrible thing, but you have to do it in a case like . this." For a nation claiming to be Christiarr and in the front ranks of civilization to glory in its own shame by publishing such letters, let-ters, is inconceivable. Those poor, wounded, helpless Boers asked for mercy mer-cy and the enemy went along sticking their lances into the bodies of the dying soldiers. Another brave Christian Chris-tian soldier, whose deeds of valor were reported by . the English- press, wrote: "We charged them, and they went ori'fhefr knees begging of us to' shoot them rather; than." stab them with our lances, but In xain. The time had come for us to do our work, and we did it." Williams, another valiant soldier sol-dier in the battle of Elandslaagte. tells what he himself did: "I got hold of one Boer he had taken an enemy pris-doing, pris-doing, 'so I made motions for him to run fqr his life. So. he went, and I galloped after. him with the sergeant's sword and cut his head right off his body." Here is a display of savage instincts worse than our Indians, who hung up. the scalps of their enemies as trophies of war. Looting was freely indulged in, and ' the enrichment of soldiers at the ex-pense ex-pense of the farmer soldiers proclaimed in the English press". A cororespondent of the Liverpool Daily Post, to encourage encour-age more volunteers to leave home, tells of the prizes obtained. "Many of our soldiers are quite rich with the loot that has fallen to them. The infantry in-fantry regiments profited to the largest extent. One Tommy secured a pocket-book pocket-book containing 270 in Transvaal money. Our boys are parading about now with gold watches, chains and other trinkets." - . Cronje's bravery and the valor of seven burghers at the battle of Ma-gersfontein Ma-gersfontein in driving back the Black Watch, the Highland light infantry, the Argylls, ooaforths and Sulherlands are thus described: "After this tate of things had continued con-tinued for several hours, and ineffectual ineffec-tual attempts had been made by guards and Gordons and lancers to make sbme impression on the .Boer lines, General Cronje, with seven adjutants adju-tants or members of - his staff took a stand on the extreme east of De la Key's position to judge of the possibility possibil-ity of an attack upon the enemy s right flank along the river. At tha,t very time the Lancers were feeling the way for a similar movement around De la Rey's left. Suddenly, on rounding . a stony elevation, about a mile eastward of the Boer entrenchments, a troop of some 200 Lancers were sighted only 400 yards away. The distance to De la Rey's position was too far for any thought of immediate help from there, and the Lancers had seen the mounted burghers emerge from the back of the small kopje. Retreat was possible and easy, but Cronle's voice rang out in his peremptory toaes: 'Schiet lulle te-rug!' te-rug!' shoot them back. The seven fcurghers dismounted, sprq-ad themselves them-selves over the stony hillock and opened fire on the Lancers, emptying saddles at every shot. Cronje, with his inseparable Karwats in hand, sat his horse while his body guard held off the Lancers, who, thinking that the hill was hiding a big force of Boers behind those who were firing,' wheeled around and galloped back to their lines." The siege of Ladysmith and the battle bat-tle of Spion Kop are graphically described de-scribed by Davitt. He says: "No oth'er battlefield of the war had yielded the harvest of horrors which Spion Kop presented to the ambulance bearers and others the morning after the murderous combat of the 24th. Over 1,500 men lay dead and wounded within the confined area of the mountain moun-tain top. They were almost all on the side of the hiil which had been occupied occu-pied by the English, and where the Krupp and pom-pom shells had burst with their rain of missiles. Heads were found a dozen yards from their ghastly trunks; hands and legs were scattered over the rocky surface; torn and mangled bodies were lying in all directions, with scores of dead faces upturned with staring eyes in the sun as if upbraiding heaven for permitting such murderous work among men belonging be-longing to God-fearing nations. A gruesome, sickening," hideous picture, which the brush of a Verestchagln, with all its powers of realistic portraiture, por-traiture, could not match in painted horrors from the limitless domain of artistic creations. 'I wished,' said General Gen-eral Tobias Smuts, in giving me his impressions of the awful scene which met his vidw after the battle had ended, end-ed, 'that I had had the power of trans- I pbrting a dozen of these poor, brace, mangled fellows lying there with headless head-less bodies and shattered limbs, to a certain bedroom in Birmingham, or in Government House, Cape Town, so that the two chief authors of this unnatural war should see some of the results of their policy on waking from sleep in their safe and luxurious homes. It might induce them to bring this dreadful dread-ful conflict to a close." : . "A story is told of an old burgher, aged 70, who was among the first to volunteer in the re-enforcement sent up the mountain by the Boer general. He v. as accompanied by his grandson, a boy of 14. No other Mauser on Spion Kop dealt out a more steady and effective fire during the carnage of the 24th than that of Oom Piet. 'One more Rcoinek down, grandpapa would be excultingly shouted by the boy as his keener eyes noted the gaps made behind the sangars across the open space, and so the scene continued. Finally Oom Piet's bandolier was emp- tied of its cartridges, and no other supply sup-ply was near at hand. The lad, however, how-ever, was equal to the occasion. Outside Out-side the entrenchments lay a burgher who had been shot through the head early in the day, and before the boy could be prevented he vaulted over the boulders, possessed himself -of the dead burgher's bandolier and sprang back again to the side of the old : warrior with the ammunition. On the dead being counted the following day.the old man and his grandson were found among the slain, lying side by side." (To be continued.) . |