Ex-President Kruger, aged seventy-nine, died at Clarens, on the Lake
of Geneva, at 3 o'clock on Thursday morning,— pneumonia complicated by disease of the heart, being the cause of death. Had the event taken place four years ago, the whole world would have been deeply moved. As it is, the news has caused hardly a ripple. That Mr. Kriiger was a man of great force and shrewdness of character there can be no doubt, but his narrowness of view, and his tolerance of corruption and of a kind of rustic Machiavellism, rendered him an unsympathetic figure in spite of his patriotism, which was no doubt perfectly sincere. When, however, his admirers compared him to Cromwell or Lincoln they profaned with their ignorance the memories of men who moved on a moral plane which Mr. Kruger not only never entered, but never even approached.
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