NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THERE is little to chronicle this week in regard to the war, except that the process of attrition goes steadily on in the way of Boer killed, wounded, and surrendered, and that we continue to take cattle, rifles, and ammunition in large !quantities. At the same time it is unfortunately necessary to record a disaster to a detachment of the Victorian Mounted -Rifles, numbering two hundred and fifty men, who were surprised in their camp on June 12th at 7.30 in the evening by a superior force of Boers. The enemy crept up within short range, and poured a deadly fire into the camp, killing two officers and sixteen men, and wounding four officers and thirty-eight men. Two officers and fifty men escaped. The re- mainder were taken prisoners, but were subsequently released. Two pom-poms were captured by the Boers. Of course the incident is a disagreeable one, but we are glad to note that it has caused little of that exaggerated public comment which marked the news of petty disasters in the earlier stages of the war. At the time that this bad news was published came the good news that a convoy of De Wet's con- sisting of seventy-one loaded waggons had been taken, and with them forty-five prisoners, four thousand cattle, and ten thousand rounds of ammunition. Another incident worth noting is that Kruitzinger, who is again raiding in the Colony, in his proclamations describes the border districts in which he is operating as part of "the Orange Free State," because those districts were nominally annexed in 1900 by the Free Staters. And yet we are told by the Pro-Boers that the Boers never in- tended or desired to do anything but defend their own hearths and homes, and that all political ambition was banished from their thoughts. Whatever the real Boer may be, the Pro-Boer is certainly a simple and pastoral person.
