A highly valued correspondent in Switzerland sends us an extract
from the Gazette de Lausanne giving a very in- accurate and unfair account of Lord Roberts's removal of the Boer women from Pretoria. A large number of Boer women in the town were found to be in constant communication with their husbands. At the same time our army was suffering from want of food, while the Boers had plenty in their lines. Lord Roberts accordingly put these Boer women and children (it would have been inhuman not to send the children with their mothers) into railway carriages, provided them with plenty of food for their journey, and sent them into the Boer lines, where they were received by their friends and relations. To talk as if the women and children had been driven out to starve on the veldt in mid-winter is pre- posterous rubbish. We are obliged to our correspondent for calling attention so promptly to the accusation of barbarity, founded on a garbled version of a perfectly legitimate action. He and other friends of England on the Continent may rest assured that Lord Roberts is absolutely incapable of ordering any act which could be justly described as barbarous and inhuman. If be errs, it is on the side of kindliness, not of harshness.
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