From. South Africa news comes as we go to press
of a serious engagement in the Transvaal, with heavy losses on both ' sides. The Boers under Delarey attacked General Dixon's forces at Vlalrfontein, near Heidelberg, and were driven off, leaving 35 dead on the ground, while the British casualties amounted to 174 killed and wounded, including 4 officers killed. The renewed activity of the Boers in Cape Colony lends support to the theory of the Times correspondent at Cradock that the Boer leaders have decided on a winter campaign in the midland districts of Cape Colony in preference to the bush veldt. Should this prove true, the Times correspondent rightly describes the movement as likely to prove the last throw of the dice. For the moment, Kruitzinger, after a success near Maraisburg, where be captured a post of forty-one men, has been driven out of the Cradock and Tarkastad districts, and is closely pursued by three columns. From the Transvaal two determined attacks on convoys are reported,—one between Potchefstroom and Ven- tersdorp, and the other near Bethel. In the two engage- ments, though the Boer attack was driven off, the British loss amounted to 10 killed and 50 wounded. Lord Kitchener's last summary gives 63 killed, 36 wounded, 267 prisoners, 83
surrenders, besides large numbers of rifles, waggons, ; but as a set-off an unusually heavy list of casualties appears in Thursday's papers. The publication of these lists before the arrival of official information as to the engagements in which the casualties have occurred is furiously resented in some quarters, but Lord Kitcheners reticence is at least preferable to the florid method of despatch- writing practised by some generals earlier in the war.
