The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 22, 1899, Page 23

e to Great Brite !;;.d Eogiish rrisoned thers saved the position erg that Oom ints by stanc 2 er Chief Betyeli was a protege of tone, who was chiet’s territory, and was one of the command the attacking Boers and perchance “dood skit’” at the Orange Free State to be readmitted o Federation, but the home Government re- called the Governor, Sir George Grey, for advocating such a policy, strangely short-sighted but not surpris- ing to the student of South African Lis- Potgieter and Pretorius died, the other in July At this stage of devel- cpment the republic was dlvided into four than districts — Potche: Toutpansberg and Rustenberg. A district was added, baving In its center - reat missionary. T had petitioned in 133§ the village named after the late come mandant, General Pretorfus—Pretoria—its nlfte being two farms bought for the sum adult natives and take the children bafore the Landdrost, stating that they had been found wandering about and that, touched with sympathy, o 3 The native now felt the burden of Boer cases of tyranny were woven into the history of the young re- made of ‘“black ivory” were in demand, and the method of ob- taining them was simply rule and many The orphans thus became appren- same year—I1863. tices Tha following extract from a lstter written not twenty years ago Is interest- * Als u kleyn Kaffers kr; ~wces £0q goct €0 Koop ¥00X myn i % “Apprentices” to shoot tha \ schryf my wat het kost—8 myde en o vongen.” (If you get small Kafrs be good enough to buy six for me. * ¢ $ e me what they cost—three malds e youths.) a plous Boer shows that the Olive Schreiner mater- 3 . ha n eye to . and iliustrates the eping a treaty pon them restraint. 1, the Boer atriarch- his desire for isolation v 1d asserted elves and he wanted his “huls” twenty miles at least from his neighbor, and ‘here he vegetated, hated by the natives, until a decay was immi- nent—a treasury containing 60 cents, a commerce? degenerated to bart was a certain preface to utter dissolution or rev- olution. In 1877 this condition was so evi- dent that Sir Theophilus Shepstone an- nexed the Transvaal to the Imperial Gov- ernment, an act which has evoked many criticlsms, but was made necessary by the old spirit of rebellion and Boer dis- like for authority. President Burgess, elected by the peo- ple, was unable to enforce their laws and they utterly refused to pay the taxes they themselves had imposed. Had the English Commissloner, left,the Transvaal to its fate he would ‘have been deemed filiberal and cruel. He took it under his care and is considered equally in the Wrong. . ik B ¥ “Tlis Transvaal” bungle from 'T7 to "99 has been the result of a &rift policy. The promises made at the annexation even partly fulfilled would have Initiated a period of prosperity, but indifference and criminal negligence provided the vironment which Kruger his and panions desired, and which kept alive the fecling of unrest and contempt of law they hereditarily knew so well how to util] The Government agents were elmply anesthetized, while the crafty Boer embodied his wacht-een-beetije (wait a while) policy, giving less information when he seemed most prodigal of report, and being most guilty of intrigue when seemingly most anxious to be frank There was no fear of Oom Paul commenc- ing_“operations” before the victim was fully ‘under- the chloroform.” True, a more active and sympathetic diplomat than Governor Lanyon would have noted “wink of Uncle Paul's g the ey 1d would not have been caught napping, as he was. The same Boer craft and the same British slumber are bein, - strated In the overtures of '8, © dsmon The Boer. proper Is a farmer. but he has been bred away from civilizatlon on lines 80 concentrated and so Inbred that hLis mentality.-has been narrowed until he is either stupid or fanatic—the latter class being jthe more numerous. He fs, to use the expression of one of my friends who experienced _the torture of twenty-four hours’, crucifixion to a wagon wheel, and whose, Wrists still, bear the marks cut into themi by the ox-réims, a *‘professor of 7L /;’//; 45&5 1: (N TENTY religion, for he sung pralms in his camy whllfl T fainted at the wagon wheel.” Personally I failed to find in the most plous much of the tenderness of the gentle Nazarene. I fully belleve when the clash on the Trans al r he 1cts will be {wr]w‘vru( >d redit . humanity of 0ok place in the last w to belleve th: for the past “Tweed ring of oplied ¢ e of I e i3 1o of the with 3 torja was prefaced by famous “wagon inc At A Gows ernment levy is to the V | Boer as stim- ulating as is the poll tax to & San Fran- clsco policeman. In Cape Colony during the year 181§ there was a_Dutchman, Bezindenhout by name, who, ‘by to pay taxes started a revolt several deaths and then the gallows at sake and direct d owed §70 taxes w ay. Special officers ng, and finally'the Sh as collateral A party o by Cronje recovered it made to the Government at Pretoria. T well remember that quiet Sundi morning _early in November, as I stoo on the Poort Hills overlooking the post Socrs headed ppeal was " Continiued on Page Twenty-Twe.