[TO THE EDITOR OF TUE SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Shortly after the return of Lord Roberts I chanced to meet a civil surgeon who in the course of his duties at the front had attended a sick soldier possessed of an up-to-date record of the war. According to this surgeon, the soldier had obtained it from a burgher killed in battle, whom I will only identify by saying that the record was kept in French. It contained the statement that the total number of burghers in the Transvaal and Orange Free State was ninety thousand or so. The doctor argued that by the law all these were liable to bear arms, and that if fifteen thousand were subtracted for men incapacitated by age and other infirmities, the deduction would be compensated for by Cape rebels and foreigners ; so that the total Boer force would be ninety thousand men. In the light of later information, the above must be pretty near near the mark.—I am, Sir, &c., Par.
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