LIEUT. MORANT—A REMARKABLE CHARACTER.

Evening Post, Volume LXIII, Issue 87, 12 April 1902, Page 5

LIEUT. MORANT— A REMARKABLE CHARACTER.

Lieutenant Harry Morant, the ex-Aus-tralia.n recently shot by court-inariial at Pretoria, was a man born in the wrong century (writes "M.G." in the Australasian). Reckless, clever, and plucky to a fault, and provided with on easy-going conscience and charming manners, he would have been a leader of men a couple of centuries ago, and might have stood bracketed in history with Francis Drake and Hairy Morgan. His audacity was illimitable, and ho possessed such a faculty for making closo friends with everybody he met that it is strange that he did not wriggle out of his last tragic escapade. After he concluded his term oi fcervice as a war correspondent uuder Bermet JBurieigh, Morant was wandering aimlessly about Pretoria, borrowing money with the ease % which almost amounted to genius in his case. One day he foil foul of a major in tho Imperial Army, and they had a quanel, from which the clever ex-corporal emerged triumphant. Next evening the choleric major attended a dinner party given by General Jingo Jones, and was astounded to find Morant seated at tho table, holding the whole of the visitors enthralled with his smart conversation. The difficulty of travelling over closed railway lines was "an easy one" to Morant. One day he was stranded at Heotorspruit, and was forbidden to travel to Pretoria by the special train, expected during the .»fternoon. "I wouldn't let the biggest general io the army go through," said the officer in charge, "unless he hnd X.'s order." Morant smiled. "Where is lv. he asked, and learning that the Com-mander-in-Chief was about five miles from the station, he galloped off, and returned triumphant to the astounded officer with Lord Kitchener's signature to the necessary order. On another occasion General Buller was approaching the Springs station on his n - ay to Pretoria, when Morant desired to travel by the train. Being denied tha privilege, he asked, "Will it stop here?" The officer smiled sarcastically. "Oh, yes, it'll stop here, all right," he said ; "you'll be able to see it leave." Morant waited unt'l the train drew up, approached an aide-de-camp, and after- a few minutes" conversation stepped into the carnage and took his seat. The train moved off, leaving a score of majors, colonels, and other officers of high rank who had vainly tried to secure seats, and when it arrived in Pretoria ox-corporal Morant was seen seated in General Buller's private compartment, chatting affably with him. With all his questionable doings, Morant retained in him a spark of old-time chivulrr, which shone out at the final coutt-niartial, when he took the whole of the blame for shooting the surrendered Boers on his own shoulders, and endeavoured to shield his comrades.