The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 15, 1900, Page 1

The VOLUME LXXXVII—NO. 105. SAN FRANCISCO, THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 1900. PRICE FIVE CENTS. _LORD ROBERTS RAISES BR ITISH FLAG OVER THE FREE STATE: €APIAL.: . - President Steyn and the Army of Burghers Retire Northward Be- fore the Entry of the British Troops Into Bloemfontein. —_——— London Goes Wild Over the Latest Triumph of the Commander in Chief of the South African Forces—First Half of the Campaign Successfully Concluded. ONDON, March 15.—The British flag flies over the presidency in Bloemfontein, in which building Lord Roberts and his staff passed last night. The keys were surrendered in due form to the com- mander in chief by the officials. The Free State and Transvaal burghers had withdrawn from the neighborhood and the British troops received a welcome from the inhabitants. These events, the result of Lord Roberts’ advance on the town Tuesday, were made public in London soon after 9 o’clock last night. While it was expected, the news was received with great rejoicing at the clubs and theaters. In the restaurants corks popped in lively fashion and toasts were drunk to Lord Roberts’ health with the hope that he would soon supplement the taking of the Free State capital by the capture of Pretoria. Mr. Steyn, “late President of the Free State,” to quote Roberts, has re- tired north to Winburg or Kroonstadt. It is probable that the army of 12,000 burghers with eight- een guns has followed him. The general opinion this morning in the Continental, as well as the London press, is that the Free Staters have practically thrown up the sponge. It is thought likely that a rear guard action will be fought to Kroonstadt by the irreconcilable of the Free State and Transvaalers; that then a retirement will be made from the Free State and Natal upon the line of the Vaal, where there is sure to be serious fighting. Lord Roberts is not likely to lose much time in providing a provisional government to administer the affairs of the Free State. General White is considered the best man to take hold of affairs. The commander in chief can now turn his attention to the south of the Free State, where Clements, Gatacre and Brabant have been holding the south bank of the Orange River, awaiting an order to push back the Boers. The latter are now in a bad position between them and Roberts’ army. No movement of any impor- tance was reported in that section yesterday, but a concerted advance will probably begin immedi- ately. The Dutch rebellion in the northwest of Cape Colony appears to be collapsing. Kitchener s directing operations and pouring British troops into the district, while there agpears ta be a serious quarrel between the rebels and Free Staters, each accusing the other of treachery and de- ceit and threatening to shoot each other. Though rumors of the relief of Mafeking are plentiful, there is no definite news. the condition of Baden-Poweil’s little force is becoming more desperate. Every hour 1S e ROBERTS REPORTS THE OCCUPATION OF BLOEMFONTEIN. LONDON, March 149 p. m.—It is officially announced that Vlinrd Roberts, has occupied Bloemfontein and that the British flag is fiy n the Capitol. The following is the text of Lord Roberts' dispatch to the War Office an- is occupation of ontein BLOEMFONTEIN, March 13, 8 p. m.—By the help of God and the bravery of her Majesty’s soldiers the troops under my command have taken possession of Bloemfontein. The British flag now flies over the Pres- idency, evacuated last evening by Mr. Steyn, late President of the Orange Free State. Mr. Fraser, member of the late Executive Government; the Mayor, the secretary to the late Governor, the Landrost and other offi- cials met me two miles from the town and presented me with the keys of the public offices. The enemy has withdrawn from the neighborhood and all seems quiet. The inhabitants of Bloem- fontein gave the troops a cordial welcome. o es before ¥, was not received at the War Office until 7:30 p. m. Wednesday. It was The delay is attributed to the field telegraphs not being connected with Bloem- RAPID AND SUCCESSFUL WORK OF LORD “BOBS.” the campaign is over. Lord Roberts arrived at Modder River on February 9. in little over a month he has effected the relief of Kimberley and Ladysmith, e hoisting of the flag in the capital of the Free State. All this has been ac. It is small wonder that he is the hero of the hour in England. All the news- intry. They talk of the Free State as having passed out of existence, as being d congratulate the c »ws of his that ther be heavy fighting, but the genius of Lord Roberts Is looked to for victory over all President Steyn is understood to show that there shall be no ambiguity as to Frazer, late rman of the Free State Raad and leader of the opposition to Mr. Steyn, came with render the keys is regarded as extremely significant of considerable difference of opinion among the that President Kruger hates Mr. Frazer on account of his sympathy with the loemfonsein inhabitants are also regarded as a good augury for the future of it eresting, in connection with the rapid advance of ‘Lord Roberts, to learn that the Russian military attache with the Boers who were captured by the British sent the following telegram to the Czar: “I am perfectly amazed at the energy rance of the British infantry. T need say no more.” There Is still no news as to whether Lord Roberts ng stock. If he has not vet, then he will be obliged to wait until the repairing of the bridges over es him to bring rolling stock up. h continue pressing their advance on the Orange River. The Boers still hold Bethulie bridge, on the north stream, but their trenches are dominated by the British artillery. Heavy firing is in progress and there has been some skirmishing. BRITISH COMMANDER’S ENTRY INTO FREE STATE CAPITAL. NDON, March 15.—A dispatch to the Daily Chronicle from Bloemfontein, dated Tuesday evening, March 13, says: loemfontein surrendered at 10 o'clock to-day. It was occupied at noon. President Steyn, with a majority of the g burghers, has fled northward. General French was within five miles of the place at 5 o'clock Monday afternoon. mmons into the town, threatening to bombard unless it surrendered by 4 a. m. Tuesday. A white flag was day morning and a deputation of the Town Council, with Mayor Kellner, came out to meet Lord Roberts at jve miles south of the town, making a formal surrender of the place. Lord Roberts made o state entry at noon. a tremendous ovation. After visiting the public buildings he went to the official residence of the President followed by a cheering crowd, who waved the British flag and sang the British national anthem. They were In a conditlon . excitement. On Monday afternoon, previous to the surrender, there had been a little sniping and shelling, but retired. The raflwa; has his headquarters at the President’s house, and there are many of the British wounded in the build- is not injured.” —_— s UNCLE SAM’S STAND REGARDING INTERVENTION. CALL HEADQUARTERS, WELLINGTON HOTEL, WASHINGTON, March 14.—It is rather expected by the adminis- t ,at after the lapse of a short time the Transvaal will make another effort to negotiate peace, but until Great hows a disposition to accept the President’s good offices this Government will take no action other than to trans. ssages that it may receive. Presidents hruger and Steyn, in asking the President to use his good offices, singling t for the purpose, indicates that they are thoroughly acquainted with the BEuropean situation - ang » cannot be expected from that quarter until the United States first indicates its willingness to act. The nt expressed to Lord Salisbury his willingness to be of any assistance to bring about peace was a mat.. ter derable comment in diplomatic circles to-day, but it was generally stated that the expression would produce no n the attitude of Europe, and it is the general consensus of opinion that before Europe can act the United States further than it has done. « authorities are very much gratified at the way in which the British Government responded to the President's inti- his good offices were at the disposal of the British Government, the reply being courteous, though a distinct Officials called attention to-day to the fact that the dispatch from Pretoria did not request Great Britain to Government to “mediate,” but to “Iintervene.” The latter is, of course, out of the question. The President will @0 no more than to use his good offices. Vhite's dispatch containing Lord Salisbury’s answer to his representations was received last night and was to-day transmitic] to Pretoria. The officials say that it closes the incident. It is not likely that the President will feel that na has &ny reht to answer at this time the Allen resolution adopted by the Senate, calling for all papers in the possession of the Btate Department relative to mediation, as the officials hold that the dispatches they have received are mot the Property of the United States, but of the South African republic. “DON. March 15,—Spencer Wilkinson in the Morning Post says: “It is not impossible that a rallway is being made ler River or Kimberley to Bloemfontein. In any case, after a pause to complete the reorganization of his commu- nications, Lord Roberts will move his troops southward on the restored rallway line to meet the British generals advancing from the Orange River. The occupation of Bloemfontein will precipitate the.retreat of the Boer forces from the Orange River districts. The Free State forces are evidently well beaten, and small blame to them. The outside estimate of their Suliien Satete war was 20,000, of whom a few thousand are on-the Orange River or watching the Natal passes, They will be unable by themselves to fight another pitched battle, but they may furnish a respectable contingent to the Trans- vasl army, urless, as seems likely, they desert to their farms.” G Lord Roberts Ent flag, and serving as Lord Roberts’ headquarters. B+ 400 0904600900600 000 000000000000 0000000 tPtIePt0t0 0000006060400+ - WAR WILL BE FOUGHT TO THE BITTER END President Kruger Declares the Burghers Intend to Battle Stubbornly to Their Death, If Necessary. EW YORK, March 14.—A dispatch from, President Kruger to the Evening Journal, dated Pretoria, March 13, 8 p. m., via Berlin, says: “The burgh- ers will only cease fighting with death. Our forces are returning in good order to our line of defenge on our own soil. The Natal campaign was longer in our favor than we expected. The British will never reach Pre- torfa. The burghers, Steyn, Joubert and myself, as well as all the others, are united. There are no differences. God help us.” PRETORIA, Monday, March 12 (via Lourenzo Marquez, Tuesday, March 13.— Lord Salisbury’s reply to Presidents Kruger and Steyn causes bitter disappoint- ment and State Secretary Reltz says it means that the war will be fought to the bitter end. NEW YORK, March 14.—Montagu White confirms the rumor that the Boers will utterly destroy Johannesburg if forced to do so. Pretoria could not be de- fended, he says, If Johannesburg were permitted to remain. e PLOT TO FREE BOER PRISONERS AT SIMONSTOWN. CAPE TOWN, March 14.—Another plot has just been discovered to free the Boer prisoners at Simons Town. The remarkable quantities of watermelons re- ceived by the prisoners aroused comnient and an investigation discovered that compromising letters were contained in the melons, the writers planning the =s- cape of the captives. Great satisfaction is felt here at the fact that transports with the bulk of the prisoners sail for St. Helena to-night. CAPE TOWN, March 14.—A great popular demonstration took place here on receipt of the news that Bloemfontein had been occupied by the British. All the church bells were rung and a procession headed by the Union Jack went to the Government house, where Sir Alfred Milner made his acknowledgments. The demonstrators sang “God Save the Queen” and then paraded through the princi- pal streets, cheering and singing patriotic songs. > BURGHERS FOUGHT LIKE HEROES AND REPULSED BRITISH. PRETORIA, Tuesday, March 13.—Commander Delarey’s report of the fight at Abraham’s Kraal, Saturday, says: “The British were estimated to number 40,000 men. Their first assault was re- pulsed. Only two Boers were wounded. The second assault was made on the hills to the left of our position. These hills were of great strategic importance. Appreciating this, T and 300 men defended the position from 9 in the morning until sundown. The burghers fought like heroes and three times repulsed masses of the British, who kept relieving their tired men. Every attempt to storm was defeated. At sundown there were not fifty yards between us. The British lost heavily. No accurate returns of our loss available.” — WELL FORTIFIED IN STRONG POSITIONS. LADYSMITH, Wednesday, March 14.—The Boers have been located in several strong positions near the junction of the Drakensberg and the Biggarsherg ranges. They have heavy guns in position on Pongwoni Kop, at Hlatukulu and in the Ompati Mountains, as well as at Gibson's Farm, near Gundycleugh Pass. General Hunter now commands the d'vision. Both men and horses of the relief column are completely recovered, and now in the pink of condition. The recou- struction of the raliway from Ladysn:ith to Dundee is progressing rapidly. — - SIX BOERS ARRESTED ON CHARGES OF TREASON. CAPE TOWN, March 14.—The Lritish troops under Lord Methuen have re- turned to Kimberley from the occupation of Bushof, Orange Free State. Guns and 70,000 rounds of ammunition were seized and a strong garrison was left to guard the town. Six Boers were arrested there on charges of treason. Nearly all the residents were wearing mourning, as the Bushof commando lost two hundred men at the battle of Belmont. e BOER REFUTATION OF SALISBURY’S CONTENTION. LONDON, March 15.—The Daily Mall has the following dispatch from Pretoria, dated Monday, March 12: X “Lord Salisbury’s reply has been recelved and a Boer refutation of the Brit- ish contention is under consideration. It will deny that any annexation has been made and it will declare that the occupation of British territory was purely strategic. It will express the determination of the two republics to fight to the finish."” COLONEL PLUMER'S FORCE IS NEARING MAFEKING. LOBATSI Thursday, March 8.—Colonel Plumer's force reached here Tuesday, March 6. It is believed that only a single bridge southward has been destroyed and that otherwise the railroad is intact within five miles of Mafeking. Colonel Plumer has already dispersed several Boer police posts in the neighborhood and is actively pushing his advance southward. - CAPE TOWN, March 14—Colonel Plumer is now within forty miles of Mafe- Kking. 5 The inset picture shows the Presidency, late the official residence of President Steyn, who has fled to Kroonstad, but now flying the British @ o - D A s i g e D+ 2050000000000 00000000edebeisdetese® ey ¥ v R . 0000000@000@"@0‘0@0006000 B I S SRR AR S O o R KIPLING R e e o ) WRITES OF BRITISH DISLOYALTY Treasonable Acts in Cape Colony That Receive Reward and Not Punishment. + Remedies Suggested. N EW YORK. March 14.—The first word from Rudyard Kipling since he went to South Africa will be printed in this week's : of Harper's Weekly. Mr. Kipling cables a long account of British dis ‘which he calls “the sin of witchcraft.” The burden of his complaint is that British civil authorities in Cape Town wince at semi-treasonable acts and to quote his own words “the Government will take care it does not pay any one to be loyal.” He says: The loyalist on the border has his house ripped inside by Boers or rebels. or both; the disloyalis farm fie respected and in return he supolies the enemy with food, horses and information. His risk is small. He may possibly—but not I his friends can stop it—be arrested on a charge of treason. He may then be sent down country to be tried by & sympathetic jury. He hopes, and not without reasom, to have his farm restored to him after he has undergone some absurdly inadequate punishment. Meanwhile the loyalist's plano is lying wireless on the verdnda; photographs of his house show the rooms as though cyclones had met to wrestle there; his flocks and herds are gone and the baby linen is lying on the dung-heap. He and hie family crawl into Cape Town in overpacked trains and get what consolation they can from singing “‘Britons Never Shall Be Slaves” on the platform. Then do Messrs. Kruger and Stéyn begin correspondence with Lord Roberts as to the atrocities committed on a virtuous population by a brutal and licentious soldiery. The loyalists declare that property handled disloyally. could be reduced to a neglectable quantity. ‘“What then.” they demand, “‘is the sense of creating and propping and sup- porting the thing as you created and propped and supported the Transvaal till it bif you?" They have a certain amount of reason on their side and it may as weil be set out to defeat, to delay, to evade and nullify the workings of a just punishment at first cautiously, but later made bold by toleration, with an insolent carelessness of security., to preach sedition under guise of abject loyalty. To malign unscrupulousiy and to lle malignantly and with knowl- edge among an ignorant people is a merry and profitable game while it endures. The play- ers, however, don't see, or busy with their small intrigues, will not realize that for each man whose neck they save arises another and yet another desiring nothing less than their necks. It is a brutal way to put it. but things are not all cream and honey in Cape Town just now, and I confess it givesr me the cold creeps to watch these smooth-talking, smfl- ing men explain to their intimates as they have explained there ten years past, how this and that will be softened down in the interest of some imperiled rebel; how help will come from here and support from another quarter and how little in any case to be feared is the British Government. The home Government is weak and of many kinds. They are omui- present; they maintain intimate relations with all sides; with the front and the far more important back front which reigns at Pretoria. The Colonial troops see this disloyalty, which the Government does not pub- lish, and Mr. Kipling voices their feelings in these words: Now men who are used to dust in their food don't care to have it thrown in their eyes. Five, six and seven thousand miles away, anxious young communities are waiting for word of their men. No detall of their doings goes unrecorded by the big dailies whose wrappers you have never opened or by the little cheap newspapers with the patent in- sides. Move a mixed colonial contingent fifty miles here across country and Winnipes, Quebec, Canterbury, Wellington and Brisbane also are moved over, and. above ail. they will write to their papers. These men's letters will be read and reread at cross-roads stores, in railroad roundhouses, In wayside dossers’ camp, at up-country race meetings, at little. Masonic lodges, along the wharves of big exporting houses and in the clubs of all the white man's world. Do you see therefors that the long enduring scorn, the terse, sticking contempt. the happy epithets put out in a dusty camp to turn up double-leaded in a journal of 0,000 circulation on the other side of the world will not come from England? The colony will be branded by her own brethren, by the open-alr men who have voted regularly since their majority and who own the houses they live in. She dare not spy that they have been bought by the capitalists, influenced by the press or prejudiced by their insular training. It is her own caste that will strip the colony of her caste. She will be left with her climate and her geographical advantages, but her place and our people’s will go over to little Natal while her honor is trailed round the world at the heels of these returning horsemen. This is unjust—bitterly and cruelly unjust. I developed the forecast at some length to a South African and there are no words to explain his extreme objection to this medicine. He was quite unconsoled by the state- ment that the Cretans have not vet recovered from the effect of a hasty hexameter of old days and that the Laodiceans have “passed into literature’’ It struck him as & plece of hideous brutality, for he loved his land with passion—you see she s his own land—in agony and great torture and it cuts him to the soul that her name should be solled. He says that she has more loyalists fighting in the fleld than Natal: that there are thousands of men and women, their relatives fighting on the other side, their hearts torn in three pieces, who still bide loyal. “Is it not.”” he asked, ‘“enough that when peace comes the disloyalists will be petted and raised to honor without this last shame upon him and his™* There is one way out of the horror and one only. The men who have befouled the colony are known. They go abroad. No man lays a hand upon them. They have be- come careless in speech and this is important, indeed. At the proper time these men can be made the means of saving the colony. e i et RUSSIA PLEDGED NOT TO TAKE ADVANTAGE. BERLIN, March 14—The weekly reviewer of the Kreuz Zeitung, who fs & well-known professor and entertains close relations with Count Von Bulow, asserts to-day that Emperor Nicholas, at the beginning of the war in South Africa, gave a formal pledge that Russia would not take advantage of Eng- land’s complications for a further Aslatic advance. The Kreuz Zeitung declares that this information is authentic. In high political circles here no surprise was felt at Lord Salisbury’s reply to the Kruger-Steyn proposals. Doubtless such an answer was expected. Nor is it believed In the same circles that the war will last much longer. A leading Foreign Office official sald to-day that there would be no further talk about in- tervention, remarking: ‘“With the Salisbury-Kruger-Steyn correspondence now made public the entire intervention question is done away with.” The papers this evening generally express sympathy with the fate of the Boers, but take it for granted that the contest will soon be over.