OCR Text |
Show FOUND TIME FOR AMENITIES How British and Boers Exchanged Compliments During the Long Siege of Kimberley. During the Boer war Mr. Rhodes was shut up in Kimberley, and the Boers constantly shelled the town with long-range artillery. They were not very successful, for with 300 big shells they only killed 12 people. Meantime, Mr. Rhodes accomplished the extraordinary feat of getting a cannon built at his works inside the town. It was a regular modern rifled gun, and fired shells also homemade on each of which was stamped, "With compliments of C. J. Rhodes." The Boers themselves were not without with-out a sense of humor. During Christmas, Christ-mas, 1899, they were besieging Lady-smith, Lady-smith, and on Christmas eve they fired ten plugged shells into the town each with a piece of plum pudding inside, and each bearing the words, "With the season's compliments." Two of the shells were found by the garrison, and it was discovered that, like Mr. Rhodes', they were homemade, home-made, having been cast in a foundry at Johannesburg. |