THE TRANSVAAL WAR.

Evening Star, Issue 11456, 25 January 1901, Page 2

THE TRANSVAAL WAR.

A LIFE GUARDSMAN'S. TRIBUTE TO NEW. ZEALAND.

At a banquet given at the Barracks', Windsor, on December 6 to the South African detachment of the First Life Guards, Corporal-major Quigley, in replying to the principal toast of the evening, said : I should not like to sit down without paying a tribute to our gallant colonial troops. There are no soldiers in tho world like our colonials, and if there are any nearer my heart than tho others they are the noble "fellows from far-off New Zealand, who are splendid soldiers every one of them.

A number of the returned New Zealand troops, per Orient, left, by this morning's express for their Louies in Christchurch and other parts of Canterbury, and were bidden good-bye by a largo number of their Dunediu comrades-in-arms and officers of the local volunteers. The Christchurch party consisted of Captain Smith, Sergeant-major Neave, Corporal Hall, Troopers Flavel. Wilson, Wynn, Williams, Dickenson, Edwards, Hean, Tasker, Pepper, Ellison, and Murray. -According to Trooper Oeorge Arnold, of Balclutha, one of the returned men by the Orient, the real ruffians and " hard cases" of the colonial forces were the New South Wales Bushmen and the Canucks, as the Canadians were called. The following incidents will suffice to show the disrespect of the Bushmen for constituted authority.— General Hamilton met. one on a hill one day while, making a tour of inspection,' at a time when the general was expecting an attack from the enemy, and all the men had orders not to venture beyond their lines. Said the general: " And what might you be doing here ?" " What!"' retorted the trooper, "do you want the whole r paddock to yourself? If you do, you can rope one in the next time!" In a Cops Town bar a Canuck was asked to name his "drink. Whipping a revolver out, he blew the neck off a bottle of whisky standing on the shelf, at the same time yelling "That's my bottle !" But of all the irreclaimable:! Strathcona's Horse, composed of cowboys from the north-west of Canada and a goodly sprinkling of lorsethieves from the same quarter, were Slyond compare. The sobriquet of " The Thousand Thieves" wtis well earned. On one occasion, at a place south of Barberton, during the progress of a wild orgie on rum. the Provost-marshal approached to quell the disorder, when his lantern was shot out.' Thereafter the guard were ordered to charge Strathcona's men in skirmishing order, and for the sake of the public peace the Canucks were located three miles out of the town.