THE RAND RISING.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3129, 7 August 1922, Page 7

THE RAND RISING.

In the belief that people outside of South Africa have no idea, of the terrorism which prevailed when the forces of disorder and disruption got the upper hand iu that country recently, a correspondent has sent to the ■Sydney Morning Herald a copy of a letter published in a South Afriaen newspaper, and written from Brakpan I>y a well-known lady to a friend in Capetown. Faced with an order to “Come out, or we ll shoot,” tho writer ot the letter was one of a party who surrendered. She proceeds to describe vividly the spectacle with which she was facet! on going into tho shaft offices of tho local mines. “The dead and wounded,” she states, “were all jumbled up on the floor. Everyone was covered in blood from head to foot; the windows were smashed, and tho chairs and tables all overturned. . . Men 1 knew quite well were scarcely recognisable. . . Two, who were almost dying, we got men to put into a doctor’s car for the nursing homo. On the way up men levelled their rifles at us, but we went on. Fat. our engineer, was one of the cases, and was sitting in his chair with his hands up, when a beast fired his revolver through his jaw. The other case was Thompson, a. special constable, who was shot through the neck. He was totally paralysed, but his spinal cord was not touched, and he may partially recover. . . From Friday until Monday we lived in a nightmare. The strike committee, everyone, made free use of the house. They commandeered our nice car, returned it with bullets through the lyres, and crept up at night to tell ns that certain desperadoes were after our husbands, to tear them limb to limb, . . We could not. bury our dead on Saturday as they would not let the coffins through the township. W© eventually got permission, and on Sunday. at groat risk, eight of our dead were buried not far from our back gate, on the veldt, as the brutes; would not let ns bury them in the cemetery. Me were absolutely cut nlf from every other mine or town from. Thursday until Monday. with little food, and in absolute terror of our lives every time we heard a footstep. We were unable to notify the aeroplanes that we were only a. burying party, and were in dread that they would drop a bomb on us. as 1 martial law did not permit a gathering. Three priests—Homan Catholic, Church of England, and. Presbyterian—gabbled the service altogether at great speed, the earth was soon shovelled in, and we (led home. . . . You cannot imagine our feelings when we knew we were about to be saved. We cheered the troops till we were hoarse. . . . We had eight killed and .‘ll wounded. Nearly every man was clubbed. “Von should have seen some of the mine bouses,” adds the correspondent. “Imagine your little home broken to sinitbereens— not even the pictures left on the walls' or the electric cords allowed to remain, and piano keys smashed with a hammer. Not only were tho chairs broken up, but they were also systematically chopped into firewood and placed in bundles.”