COLESBERG: PRESIDENT KRUGER'S BIRTH-PLACE.
Seventy-four years ago Paul Kruger was born in the neighbourhood of Colesberg in Cape Colony. He left it with his parents in 1837, at the time of "the Great Trek," and travelled northwards to the wild country, which eventually became the South African Republic.
Kruger.
The president and the evil genius of the Transvaal through this epoch was Stephanus Paulus Johannes Kruger, born in Cape Colony on October 10, 1825. He was a man of indomitable courage and extraordinary force of character—a fighting man from his youth up. His coolness was shown on one occasion, when, out hunting, he suddenly one day, from the top of a kopje—a hillock such as cover the surface of the upland plains of South Africa—saw a large number of Kaffirs evidently advancing to attack him. He sat calmly down without betraying the slightest trepidation, shook the sand from his rough raw-hide shoes, and then waved and signalled with his rifle as if to a considerable force of Boers behind him under shelter of the kopje. The Kaffirs, convinced by his show of boldness that he was not alone, precipitately retreated.
His character.
As a diplomatist, Mr. Kruger earned Bismarck's commendation. The great German, who had met him, saw in him the strongest man of our time. He was, however, destitute of that noble instinct without which statesmanship builds upon the shifting sands—the instinct of justice and fair play. Personally corrupt, since he was not above charging very heavy travelling expenses for a certain trip in which he was the guest of Cape Colony; winking at or openly justifying corruption in others; laying up a colossal fortune out of the stealings of himself and his friends from the State, he had all the uncouthness and all the iron determination of an Abraham Lincoln, but lacked the great American's cleanness of hand and love of justice and of right.
PRESIDENT KRUGER.
Born at Rustenberg, near Colesberg, Cape Colony, October 10, 1825. Emigrated across the Vaal, 1837. Member of Executive Council under President Burghers, 1872. President of Transvaal since 1883; re-elected 1888, 1893, 1898.
