There is an interesting study of Lord Roberts in the
Daily Mail of Tuesday, from the pen of the American war- correspondent, Mr. Julian Ralph. The change in the men was "instant and bone-deep " when it became known he was coming out to take the chief command, nor were the officers less confident in the results of his advent. The correspon- dents surrendered to his spell at their first interview—at a dinner in Bloemfontein he completed his conquest by asking to be allowed to call them "comrades "—nor was he less frank and liberal in his welcome to the foreign Attaches. Mr. Ralph also notices the plainness of his dress and the Spartan simplicity of his living—he "asks for few comforts and no luxuries "—his indefatigable energy, his unwearied advocacy of temperance, his royal gift of memory, and his wide-reaching sympathy, tempered, when occasion requires, with unflinching sternness. Lord Roberts, according to Mr. Ralph, is "more beloved and admired than any living man, trusted more implicitly, followed more unquestioningly, and obeyed more cheerfully (especially when he sets his army its hardest tasks) than any living man of whom we have any knowledge." The article is pitched throughout in a high key of eulogy, yet contains no falsetto note of insincerity or adulation.
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