  A chapter which introduces a Prince, and tells of our Appeal to the whole Army to write for The Friend. The next day's issue, that of March 22nd, was the best-looking number we had produced. We dropped those little frames on either side of the title of the paper which journalists call "ears" or "ear-tabs," so that the front page looked dignified and ship-shape, and the title read simply The Friend, without its former addenda of "Playing cards" and "Cue tips." In place of these we printed the royal coat-of-arms. This issue contained a heart-felt eulogy of Sir W. S. A. Lockhart by the Field Marshal. General Kelly in Camp Orders declared that hereafter horse thieves would be severely dealt with, and there appeared a notice by Prince Francis of Teck, "Staff Captain, Remount Department," that the army desired horses of certain ages and a certain height, as well as agents to buy them. This reminds all who were at Bloemfontein how the Prince came and put up at the Bloemfontein Hotel, and began to fill up an immense yard just on the edge of the town with a marvellous collection of veldt There went to the stalwart and kindly Prince one day an artist who said he desired to surrender two mules which did not belong to him. It was not the truth that he desired to give them up, nor was it out of politeness that he told the falsehood. The fact was that the army had taken his horses and left him a pair of feeble, poorly animated steeds of the clothes-horse pattern, which gave out on the long road between Poplar Grove and Bloemfontein. At the same time two healthy mules, astray on the veldt, evinced a yearning for human companionship, and insisted upon intruding themselves upon the company of the artist and his Basuto servant while they were preparing lunch. To go on with his own weak and sick animals was to invite a loss of locomotive power in a country infested with Boers. To make use of the fresher mules was the natural and obvious alternative. Therefore the artist abandoned his horses and went on with the mules. Arrived in Bloemfontein, he at once continued his travels by joining the "bill-sticking expedition" of General French over to Thaba N'chu and the region beyond. "Bill sticking," by the way, was how the officers nicknamed the distribution of copies of Lord Roberts' proclamation calling on the Boers to lay down their arms and sign a promise not to continue the war. When the artist returned to Bloemfontein he was met by friends who said that he would certainly be shot if he "And very nice indeed it is of you," said the Prince, "very honest and straightforward. I will send some one to get the mules this afternoon." "But, I beg pardon," said the artist, "now everything's all right, isn't it? The mules were not mine, and I have surrendered them, and there's no trouble to follow?" "No, indeed," said Prince Francis, "I am much obliged to you. Animals are very scarce and we need all we can get; so very good of you to do as you have done." "Well, now," said the artist, "won't you please let me keep the mules? The Army stole my horses and left me a broken-down pair. I had to turn them loose and take these mules or I should have been killed or captured by the Boers. I have nothing else to move on with. I wish you would let me keep the mules." "Really," said the Prince, "I cannot do that. I never heard such a proposition in my life. I have no authority to do as you ask. Upon my word, this is most extraordinary. Come, I'll tell you what I will do. I'll see that you get a pair of animals at the Army price. I can't sell them to you or buy them for you, but I can have a pair put aside for you to buy of somebody who brings them in to sell." At about this time an American correspondent who was never guilty of taking even an abandoned Boer horse, but who had purchased a fine animal of a negro on the veldt for five shillings, became very nervous over his purchase. He went to the stable and with the help of his servant clipped the animal close, so that it no longer resembled the long-haired beast he had bought. Then he went out into the street and met a Boer, who accused him of having taken his horse and who exactly described the animal in question. The Boer said he would report the case to Major Poore, the Provost-Marshal. The now frightened correspondent came to my room with his burden of sorrows, and stated his case to the company of officers, correspondents, and despatch-riders then present. "The Boer's name is Voorboom," he said, "and he is in earnest. I suppose I shall be sent home in disgrace." At the mention of the name three men spoke up saying that of all the rascals in need of a hanging this Voorboom was the sorriest. One had seen Boer combatants in Voorboom's house, another had seen Voorboom's brother trundling into a clump of bushes an English carriage which he had stolen; a third had "Give him an hour in which to leave town or go to jail at Simon's Bay," said a Colonel, ending the incident. Mr. Kipling was in town at last and had promised us his assistance, but we could not then know whether this would be great or little; we could not have hoped or dreamed that it would prove a quarter or a third part of all our work, as it did. On the other hand, we were only too painfully aware that very little aid was being vouchsafed us. We found ourselves with a great newspaper on our hands, a newspaper with a gaping void of terrible dimensions. "Reuter" had promised its despatches to us, but these were not allowed on the crowded telegraph wires for days at a time, as it proved, and the whole burden was upon us, joined to the necessity we felt to do our full duty to our newspapers at home—one at least of which demanded a despatch every day and four letters a week if possible. The army had been counted upon for valuable and voluminous help, and it was practically sending us in nothing. Mr. Landon reminds me that within an hour of Mr. Kipling's arrival in Bloemfontein he went to him and said (with considerable trepidation): "We have put you down as an editor of The Friend, and we have announced it." Then Mr. Landon held his breath and waited. "Well," Mr. Kipling replied, "I should have been mortally offended if you had not. Where's the office? I want to go to work as soon as I have finished my grape Other armies (I wrote), have always been distinguished by brilliant raconteurs. Other armies have always contained a plenitude of wits and humorists. Other armies have been noted for the abundance of funny anecdotes with which chum assailed chum and battalion guyed battalion. Other armies have taken note of the more striking deeds of prowess, of valour and of strategy which have been done among their members; and other armies have boasted poets grave, poets gay, poets rollicking, and poets who dedicated their verses to their mistress's eyebrows. Alas! none of these things has this poor army—so poor in wit and literary talent, however rich it be in courage, patience, dogged persistence and proud victories. This army is like a sponge for taking what entertainment the sweating editors of The Friend will give it. It is like a barnacle for fastening itself upon us and fattening its dead weight upon this little literary bark. It is like a horse behind our waggon, which was built, like most vehicles, to have its horses in front. It is like the veldt around us in its capacity to swallow any amount of refreshing rain and yet appear as dry in four hours afterwards as if it were the pavement of that place which can only be "If I owned Satandom and South Africa," said a Canadian Tommy at Modder River, "I would rent out South Africa and live in Satandom." But we nearly digressed—a sin unpardonable in an article so important as this, written hot upon the impulse of suffering and keen feeling. The committee of war correspondents with Lord Roberts' army, who undertook to conduct, for the first time in history, a full-fledged complete daily newspaper published in an enemy's capital two days after the conquest thereof, are all busy men in their own line of industry. They have constant daily work to do, they are trusted by their own newspapers to devote their whole talents and energies to the interests of the public at home. Nevertheless they have turned aside to conduct this newspaper, they are doing so, and will continue to do so to the day the army pushes on and away. But in undertaking this task their idea was that they merely had to start the paper and give it a momentum, after which the army would turn to and flood the editorial sanctum with tales of humour, wit, and prowess writ upon sheets numberless as the leaves of Vallambrosa. The reader will gather that this has not yet taken place. He will infer that the war correspondents are, like the last rose of summer, left blooming to ourselves. True, two or three generous and gifted souls in the army have come nobly into the breach with contributions; but the breach is nine columns wide—nine columns that persist in emptying themselves as fast as we fill them; in fact, nine columns which Come, then, ye gentles and geniuses, ye poets, ye anecdotists, ye thrillers and movers with the pen—join our staff, and put your mighty little ink-damped levers to the rock that we are rolling up the gigantic kopje of your thirst for news and entertainment. Your pay shall be the highest ever meted out to man—the satisfaction of souls content. Your company shall include a Kipling. Your readers shall be the bravest, noblest, proudest soldiers who ever served an earthly race. You can ask no more. You can ask nothing else. But in the meantime we want "copy." We published also a brief communication respecting the Dutch name Stellenbosch. This needs a word of explanation. It had long been noticed that whenever an officer was prominently connected with a losing battle, or exhibited marked incompetence in any field of military work, he got a billet at Stellenbosch, a bowery village deep down in the Cape Colony, where was established our base camp of supplies. The name therefore attained a deep significance and common usage in the army, and to say that a man had been "Stellenbosched" was but the ordinary polite mode of mentioning what might otherwise have had to be said in many harsher-sounding words.
BLOEMFONTEIN, FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 1900. PROCLAMATION.Whereas it is considered necessary in the interests of the Orange Free State, and until arrangements may be made, that the provisions of the Customs Convention existing between the said State and the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, and the Colony of Natal, shall be duly observed, and the Laws and Regulations appertaining thereto shall be enforced as soon as communication between the said Colonies and such portions of the Orange Free State as have been or may hereafter be occupied by Her Majesty's troops is restored, and the customary commercial relations are resumed; and whereas it is expedient that the necessary officers for the control and management of the Customs Department of the Orange Free State shall be appointed, Now therefore I, Frederick Sleigh Baron Roberts of Khandahar, K.P., G.C.B., G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E., V.C., Field Marshal, Commanding-in-Chief of the British Forces in South Africa, do hereby nominate and appoint the following officers, to wit:—
EXEMPLARY SENTENCES. |
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