OFFICERS' IMPEDIMENTA.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")
Sin,—So much has been said by the Press on the subject of officers with mobile columns in South Africa carrying pianos and kitchen ranges with them, that I think it is only fair to the army in the field that the real facts should be as publicly made known. The following is an extract from the letter of a senior officer who commanded the infantry of a column near -Klerksdorp, and who, with his regiment, has been on trek since May last, throughout which period they have been almost daily on the march. After mentioning how much the enemy has been encouraged by the Pro-Boer Press in England to carry on this futile war, the writer goes on to say :—
"There is no doubt the newspapers have made statements which are utterly incorrect. What my old friend the Spectat,.r fays about pianos and kitchen ranges:is too ridiculous. Is it likely that officers whose baggage is restricted to 50 lb. all told can carry pianos ? It is quite true our column has once or twice had a piano with it. And the way we came by it is as follows. When Boer families were taken out of farms they were allowed— provided we had the empty ox-waggons—to bring away as much furniture with them as was possible, and they sometimes insisted on taking their pianos. This did not affect the mobility of the column. The mobile part of a column is the cavalry. An ox- transport travelling at the rate of 14 miles an hour full of women and children surely cannot be called a mobile column. When we left Klerksdorp all the waggons were filled with supplies, but each day emptied a waggon, into which the Boer families were placed with their belongings. This part of the column was under may command. The mobile part—cavalry and horse artillery— was commanded by the General Officer, who left us when there was information of .Boers being in the neighbourhood, and rejoined us at a given point when the provisions carried by them were exhausted."
I hope the above explanation will help to rectify a few illusions, for most people would imagine from the speeches
that have been made, and the articles that have been written, on the subject of pianos and kitchen ranges, that our sorely tried, hard-worked officers have carried about musical instruments out of pure gaiety of heart, much as Nero fiddled while Rome burned, and that the kitchen ranges, of which the 'writer makes no Special inention, Were deported by them for the purpose of improving their dinners. The same writer a few weeks ago mentioned in a letter that at one of
the farms which had to be burned some Boer ladies absolutely refused to move unless they were allowed to take . their coffins with them, and two coffins had accordingly to be put into an empty waggon. How is it that neither in the Press nor by any Pro-Boer speaker .mention has ever been made, of
the iniquity of officers carrying about coffins P—I am, Sir,
• .[Our correspondent forgets that it was not the Spectator but Lord Kitchener w:ho put it officially on record that certain mobile columns had carried with them pianos and kitchen ranges, a practice which he strongly condemned.— En. Spectator.]
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