Mr. Buxton wrote the stern editorial, "Judge ye," with which we led off the issue of April 14th. He reminded the Free Staters that England had, at the outset, no quarrel with them, but on the contrary had given them the "solemn assurance" that their independence and territory should be respected. The people of the little Republic had been led astray, had suffered conquest, and now were able to judge between the wicked whisperings of the two Presidents and the promptings of common sense and of regard for their future, "for," wrote Mr. Buxton, "brothers you must be with us, heirs and possessors of world-wide citizenship and Empire."
We had recorded our first wedding, and now was the day when we received the first application from an English firm desiring to advertise in our columns. A well-known house-furnishing firm were the enterprising inquirers. They said that they looked for a great development of the country and meant to send agents there when the war ended. On our part we made this request the basis of an editorial in which we said that this business letter "foreshadows the coming changes in local conditions with a prophetic touch."
Mr. Gwynne concocted a clever set of quotations which he called "Gleanings from Great Minds," and we published number three of our series of home-made portraits, choosing Dr. A. Conan Doyle as the subject. At this the Army at last began to whisper and suspect, and many a smile greeted each allusion to our enterprise.
But our chef d'œuvre was a second contribution by "Bertie," whom all our readers knew to be none other than the handsome, the witty, the travelled, and the popular Adjutant of the Scots Guards, Captain Cecil Lowther. As the first letter had already been published in the Household Brigade Magazine I will not repeat it here, but the one that is now reproduced will give a lively hint of what our readers missed by the fact that Captain Lowther was away on duty in the boggy, sodden veldt, and could neither write nor think of writing, even to The Friend.
A large collection is made from this issue of the paper of April 14th. All that is in this book reflects the excitement, the routine, and the dramatic and picturesque phases of a soldier's life, as well as the strange situations and conditions produced by the conquest and occupation of a city in war. If that is true (and it is true in a very great degree as I believe), then in no chapter are more of all these novel views of irregular life mirrored than in this. From this you shall learn what a soldier had in the way of rations, how a great and majestic mind dealt with the rumours that British prisoners were being far from generously, or even humanely, dealt with by the semi-civilised foe; how a polished wit out of his superabundant humour found time to set down his sparkling thoughts in a soaking wet camp or a cold, wet plain, within sniping distance of the enemy, and finally, how drained of almost every line of foodstuffs, medicines, clothing, and luxuries the over-burdened town we lived in was becoming.
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THE FRIEND.
(Edited by the War Correspondents with Lord Roberts' Force.)
BLOEMFONTEIN, SATURDAY, APRIL 14, 1900.