• Evidence is steadily accumulating to show that the Boers
who have invaded Cape Colony have treated the natives and British subjects alike with great brutality. During the occupation of Calvinia by the commandos under Brand, Hertzog, Pretorius, and De Villiers, the Kaffirs, according to Reuter's correspondent, were constantly sjamboked for the slightest offences,--such as refusing to salute a Boer. British subjects were "thrashed unmercifully," and a Landdrost was appointed "whose functions appear to have been mainly those of an executioner, since every Dutchman in the neigh- bourhood who had a grudge against his native employes brought them before the Landdrost, who without exception awarded them a severe flogging." The worst case of all, however, was that of a loyal coloured blacksmith, who was flogged for refusing to reveal where arms had been buried. "Inflammation of the kidneys set in; nevertheless he was again beaten through the village with sjamboks until he was unable to walk, and was then shot dead." We notice that these accounts of Boer cruelty are sedulously ignored by news- papers which condemn the continuance of the war, and that an attempt has been made to discredit Piet de Wet 's recent intervention, the innuendo being that he was bribed by exceptional terms to become the "ready letter-writer" of the British Government.
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