Mr. Landon was also very ill of what I took to be a slow African fever. We laid the facts before the authorities, and suggested that our colleague, Mr. F. W. Buxton, now back at work with us, was able to promise that the accomplished staff of the Johannesburg Star would gladly take The Friend off our hands if its members could be passed up to Bloemfontein on their way to Johannesburg. They were all receiving salaries though nearly all were idle; the owners had suffered grievously by the closing of their establishment at the outbreak of the war, and they certainly deserved well of the British Army.
With this view our military editorial chiefs coincided, and Mr. Buxton busied himself in arranging for the coming of the editors, reporters, and printers, and the transfer of the little Organ of the Empire to their charge.
This number of April 12th began with a leader on "The Queen in Ireland," and this was followed by a play upon the society notes of other papers, written by Mr. Gwynne. Our prolific soldier-poet, "Mark Thyme," contributed two sets of verses, and once again we published the news of the world, like any genuine newspaper at home.
On this day we printed our first "alleged" portrait, No. 1 of a series of pictures of the notable characters in town. We selected Mr. Burdett-Coutts as the leading figure in this gallery, and made a most modest announcement that we had secured the portrait and were able to present it to our readers.
I am quite certain that never before in the Free State had a newspaper published a portrait made on the spot and of a newly arrived visitor. There were in the Free State no means for doing such work. But such is the non-thinking habit of the human race that not a soul questioned what we announced, or asked how the feat was accomplished. It was declared to be, in a way, like Mr. Burdett-Coutts, and every one took it for granted that there was nothing The Friend and its editors could not do if they tried.
NOTICE.
By kind permission of Lieutenant-General Kelly-Kenny, C.B., the massed bands of the 6th Division will play on the Market Square from 4 to 5.30 p.m. on Easter Monday.