The amalgamator of mines and countries had chosen his men well.
These editors must be in the possession of dictionaries unknown to the rest of the world. Dictionaries with an alphabetical list of all the bad names ever invented, with the addition of some specially invented for the occasion. The writers for the papers belonging to the organisation for painting Boers black seemed to have a special mode of writing their articles. A string of bad names is selected, and manufactured into some tale of Boer cruelty, duplicity, dishonesty, or something of the sort.
This story would be published and taken up by the various papers belonging to the organisation, and any other paper in foreign lands which might be misinformed enough to believe such stories. How England and the rest of the world would be shocked with these tales. How well-meaning people in distant England would cry shame at these savage (?), cruel (?), and dishonest (?) Boers. Ah! this cowardly, strike-a-man-behind-his-back, blacken-a-dog’s-name-and-then-kill-him, Boer-hating, anti-freedom, anti-republican organisation knew well that England can yet boast of millions of honest, fair-minded and well-meaning people, who would not allow a free, peace-loving and God-fearing people to be trampled under foot by a speculating, company-mongering, Matabele-exterminating organisation. For this reason, the Boer must first be blackened, his name must be made to stink in the nostrils of the English and European public. It must be made to appear a great deed of chivalry to exterminate these women-killing (?), slave-dealing (?). Uitlander-oppressing (?) Boers.
But the sequel has shown that there is a just Heaven above, who watches over countries, empires, republics and peoples as well as over individuals. The machinations of these plotters were made to fall back upon their own heads by a just God. They were made to fall into their own pits, dug for others. Read on and see.
Although evidently directed from Cape Town, the operations of the organisation were centred in Johannesburg, as being the place where the materials to be used for their purposes—the Uitlanders—were most plentiful, and, also being in the heart of the Boer Republic, they could strike more to the purpose.
Every pretext was made use of to find fault with Boers and Boer government. Let them come across a God-fearing, religious Boer, and he is described as a hypocritical, sanctimonious, double-faced knave. If, on the contrary, a Boer is met who moves with the surrounding world, speculates, goes to entertainments, or takes a drink at a bar, he again is called a drunken, cheating, parasitical, half-civilised scoundrel.
Again, should the Government take righteous umbrage at haughty and unjust demands from their particular party, and refuse them, the Government is called a tyrannical, autocratic and oppressive government. Should the Government again consider a request fair and just, or tenable in any way, and grant it, then they are jeered at, now they are beginning to be afraid and are obliged to give way. Or, again, it was granted through favouritism, or through bribery. Such was the one-sided criticism indulged in.
Familiarity brings contempt. The Government got to be so accustomed to this one-sided abuse, that they really treated it with the contempt it deserved. This gave courage to the black libellers.
Constant droppings will wear away a stone. The constant hacking and pegging away at the Government began to take effect on the Uitlander public. They began to believe it, saying, ‘Where there is smoke there must surely be fire?’ At least such was the effect on the least-informed portion of the Uitlander population.
The first visible and material victory obtained by the organisation was the FLAG INCIDENT.