NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE news of the week from Pretoria is distressing. The Executive Council has " commuted " the sentences of the four ringleaders—Colonel Rhodes, Mr. Phillips, Mr. Farrer, and Mr. Hammond—into sentences of imprisonment for fifteen years, which, in the climate of Pretoria, means death under miserable circumstances. It is said that the President was in favour of mercy, and there are reports that farther commutations will be granted, but the truth seems to be that Mr. Kruger regards his prisoners as hostages, and will make of their fates pressing arguments in his negotiations. The remainder of the prisoners, some sixty in number, are condemned to a few months' im- prisonment and the payment of a fine of 22,000 each, some of which will be spent, it may be faintly hoped, in improving the infamous sanitary conditions of the Pretoria gaols. We have said enough upon the impolicy of this severity elsewhere, and need only add here that it has irritated the Afrikanders and the moderate party among the Boers themselves, while it has thrown the Outlanders a the Transvaal into a frenzy of rage. All business has been suspended, and labourers are being discharged by the thousand.
