TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8592, 20 September 1893, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

One of the moet remarkable A Female circumstances in connection Volunteer, with the recent discovery

that a person who had for years worked as a farm labourer in Victoria was in reality a woman, is the fact that for a considerable time she served as a private in the Mounted Rifles, in which she proved herself to be a useful member. Whether there was any truth in her statement that she had served as a soldier through the Schleswig-Holatein war, had received a medai for her services, and had some special commendation m connection with the wound which disfigured her, is not likely to be discovered now, but some colour is lent to the assertion by the fact mentioned by the Argus that she showed a decided knowledge of internal military routine, that could only have been picked up in field service. She was a hard worker in camp, and being an excellent cook, she filled that important position when the Company were in training. The cleverness of an old soldier is proverbial, and " Jack Jorgenson," the name by which she was known among her companions, justified her claims of having seen active service by obtaining for her Company a full ration on one occasion when there was a short supply of meat for the regiment. She said she knew enough of the ways of commissariats to get an extra half sheep without any particular trouble, and she apparently succeeded. The disfigurement of her face, which she said was caused by the bursting of a shell, was very pronounced, the nose being partly flattened and a cicatrice extending all over one side of the face. These injuries, it is said, gave her the look of a Chinaman, so much so that Colonel Price, seeing her for the first time, asked the officer commanding how he had come to take a Chinaman into the corps. Jorgenson's statements as to her lield service were never doubted by the officer then in charge of the corps, who, as an old soldier himself, having served under Lord Napier, might be expected to have detected anything incongruous in her story. A little bit of femininity crops up in connection with that delicate subject, her age. When she joined the Mounted Rifles in 1887 she said she was 54, though she looked older. When she died the other day her sister stated that she was 51. Not every ■ woman, however, is content with knocking only ten years off her age, so that, considering thers was no one to contradict her, the woman-soldier kept pretty closely to facts. The Argus quotes a case somewhat similar to Jorgenson's as coming within the experience of Colonel Price. When that officer was a crack racket player in India one of his strongest opponents was a certain Surgeon-Major in the Army Medical Corps, who, although short and stout, and handicapped by a withered right arm, was very active. This officer when he died was discovered to be a woman. The reason for such freake on the part of women is hard to conjecture; perhaps if one could discover it a romance would be found to beimderlying every thing. But no romance will surround the woman of the future who may be found to have been impersonating a man. Here in New Zealand, even, we are already used to the daily occurrence of such things, and if the truth must be told we must acknowledge sadly that there is no romance about it at all.

The death of Sir TheoA Pioneer philus Shepstone, once so of Empire, great a power in South

Africa, was announced some time ago, and we now have before ua a most appreciative notice of him, writtfen by Mr Rider Haggard, the well-known novelist. Sir Theophilus Shepetone'j. name was at one time often to be beard in" England, from the prominent part he played in connection with the Zulus, but latterly he had been almost completely forgotten. Yet for many years, dating from 1845 until a few years before the Zulu war, he held an onerous position' as diplomatic agent over the tribes of Natal. Mr Haggard says "he was virtually responsible for the management of Native affaire in the new territory, and there can be no doubt of his extraordinary success in this capacity Notwithstanding the precarious position of the handful of white men in Natal, surrounded as they were and still are by dense masses of warlike savages of Zulu blood, with a trifling exception . . . . . during these many years, he kept, the Queen's peace unbroken." One most dramatic incident of bis career ia well told by Mr Haggard. In 1861, in order to avert bloodshed in the event of the death of Panda, then King of Zululand, Sir Theophilus (then Mr) Shepstone ("Sompseu," as the Zulus called him), formally nominated his son Cetewayo, later on our enemy, as heir to the throne. This course did not, for some reason, please Cetewayo, who, accompanied by 3000 armed warriors, came to the royal kraal, or village, with the object of killing Mr Shep- | stone. The Bang, though he had an idea of his son's intention, was powerless to check him, and contented himself with delivering an eloquent speech to the as- I sembled multitudes on the duties of hospitality. Later on one of Mr Shepstone's servants committed some breach of eti- j quette which roused the anger of CeteWayo's chiefs, who loudly remonstrated. Mr Shepstone retorted, " Toe man is my dog, j and I can beat my own dogs." Then, says Mr Haggard, began an extraordinary scene.

For two hours and more, thousands of armed savages shouted round him, threatening him with their spears. All this while Sompseu sat etill and silent, showing not the slightest emotion, although he expected that every moment would be bis last. At length there came a lull, and he rose and said: —" I know that you mean to kill mc; it is an easy thing to do; but I tell you, Zulus, that for every drop of my blood that falls to the ground a hundred men will come out of the sea, from the country of which Natal is one of the cattle kraals, and will avenge mc bitterly." As he spoke, he turned and pointed towards the ocean, and so intense was the excitement which animated them, that every man of the great multitude turned with him and stared towards the horizon, as though they expected to see the long lines «if the avengers creeping across the plain. Silence followed bis speech ; his imperturbability and his welltimed address had saved his life. From that day his name was a power in the land. It was in reference to this picturesque and characteristic incident that. Cetewayo said

shortly after it occurred, "Sompseu is a great man ; no man but he could have come through that day alive."

Mr Haggard thinks that co man ever lived who had so wide an authority over the native racna from the Zambesi to the Cape, or who won their esteem and love with such completeness, and that in Sir Theophilus iShepstoue died a man whose exact counterpart the world will never sec, because, whatever the future has in store, the circumstances under which he lived caunot nrise again. Bat all np and down the world brave men are still holding the outposts of our great empire, under circumstances less dangerous and heroic, perhaps, than those with which Sir Theophilus Shepatone's career is connected, but also less glorious. No one hears their names, their reward is often scanty, but the fame and honour of England are within their keeping, and we take leave to think that, whenever the need arises for such another man as Sir Theophilns Shepstone, that man will be found waiting and ready for the call.