THE LIBELS ON LORD KITCHENER AND HIS SOLDIERS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF TILE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—With reference to the letter in the Spectator of February 23rd under the above heading, you may perhaps think the following extracts from letters I have had from an officer at Middelburg in the Transvaal of sufficient interest to be worth publication, tending as they do to show how unwar- rantable are "the lies and treason" denounced by the writer of that letter. On December 4th my correspondent after his return with a small column he was in command of wrote : —" We found a women's Mager at Kranspoort Farm, about twenty women and forty children. The Boers don't seem to regard their families, whom they leave apparently with no anxiety alone in farms. I am sorry for the poor children,
but I have not seen any who look frightened. Our men are very kind to all, and a great deal too good for these semi-barbarous people. We surprised Field-Cornet Pretorius's farm on November 30th; some arms were found, and soft- nosed bullets ; these bullets on striking expand like a mush- room and cause a fearful wound." In a letter dated January 2nd my correspondent says :—" A New Year's treat was given yesterday to all the children in Middelburg ; over four hundred appeared and got cakes and tea, &c., Sze., games, 60th Band. All except a few were Boer children, many belonging to men now trying their best to kill our men by fair means or very foul. It is very hard to tell Boer children from the British Colonial children one sees in Natal, except occasionally, when the offspring of a black Boer is unmistakable by colour. The children seemed to enjoy them- seves very much, and were clean and nicely dressed." It is to be noted that when these letters were written our troops had been some months in that part of the Transvaal, and it is not in reason to be supposed that had there been any truth in the Pro-Boer papers charging our soldiers with outrage, the country Boer women and children would be found anywhere remaining unprotected in laagers and farmhouses, or that their children would be enjoying themselves at entertainments got up for them by our officers.—I am, Sir,
EMERITUS, R.A.
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