It is as well that Mr. Amcry in The Times,
and other writers elsewhere, should recall the fact that it is just fifty years since the Hoer War broke out. To what a now forgotten England it be- longed. This country had engaged in no major war since the 'fifties. We .were environed by settled peace. The Jameson raid four years elrher had caused a sensation, but the raiders had been defeated and
nothing came of the war they might have precipitated. But in the end war did come. I remember well as a schoolboy reading with a strange thrill the first war bulletin, posted up by the local paper in the window of a suburban shop. It ran roughly: "An armoured train crossed the border from Natal into the Transvaal ; fighting started shortly after." That must have been on October 12th. The first new thing the war brought was khaki ; till then the streets were gay everywhere with the redcoats of whom A. E. Housman sang. It brought little medallions with pictures of General Buller. And it brought "The Absent-Minded Beggar," written promptly by Rudyard Kipling, set to music by someone or other, printed on art paper by The Grwhic or Black and White (I forget which) and sold at is. for the benefit of some war charity. What it brought later in darkness and defeats (with Baden-Powell and Mafeking as one gleam in the gloom) I will not write of here. That is no part of this week's anniversary.
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