PRETORIA'S PITFALLS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue 7366, 18 January 1902, Page 3 (Supplement)

PRETORIA'S PITFALLS.

PHRYNE AND LAIS AS SPIES.

"K. .of K." is popularly supposed to be both a misogynist and a misogamist, but it does not follow that he is ignorant of woman's wiles or that he faiis to recognize the value of the maxim "Cherchez la femme.". On the contrary — according to the "Daily News" — when his schemes miscarry, owing to the Boers getting wind of his projected movements, he is wont to suspect the "eternal feminine," whom Sir John Cockburn delights to quote. So far we have heard much of the champagne and other liquors which too often retard the mobility of the British officer, but little of another cause of his undoing. "Booze and the blowens cop the lot" was the refrain of one of Henley's ballades. Apparently "K. of K." comes to a similar conclusion when there is a leakage of official information. But not content apparently with "seeking the woman," he is, so the "Daily News" tell us, also making "the woman seek," and pressing into his secret service the Phrynes of Pretoria with their seductive and wheedling arts.

The Headquarters Staff (says the "Daily News' " correspondent) are said to be intensely annoyed by having their actions spied upon by these lights o' love, and apparently with good reason, for "their work has already resulted in a number of officers being 1 relieved of their appointments

on. the staff; others have been punished in a variety of other ways -for slight delinquencies and offences of which they deny the slightest knowledge."

By way of illustration of the methods of the.se agents provocateurs the correspondent tells of a young officer shunted from the- staff "all on account of Eliza," so to speak. The Delilah who played the leading part in the Pretoria drama "Woman and Wine" bears a very strong family resemblance to a Boer lady of ravishing beauty and bewitching manner who wheedled all the British officers save "K. of K." 'from Capetown to Ma f eking into whispering their secrets into her ear, and who finally escaped by painting her figure coal black. So at least "Smiler" Hales assured us many months ago. Doubtless the lady, while "resting" in the back blocks, trained up a special intelligence department of those fascinating Boer girls, one of whom "Smiler" also told us, so thrilled his heart by moonlight in a grove of orange blossoms. The British officer is highly susceptible to beauty, and the Boer belles have doubtless pulled his leg to some purpose. We heard the other day complaints that demjmondaines were allowed to find their way to Pretoria and Johannesburg, when bona fide refugees were prohibited from returning. Now we understand why. They were only part of Lord Kitchener's secret service, charged first with supplanting the Boer temptresses in the affections of Ihe British officers and then with ascertaining which of the latter would blab indiscreetly while in amorous dalliance.

Here is Smith's, the correspondent's story of the modus operandi: — "Mars, Junr., met a lady in October in Pretoria. She was in dire distress. A friend (an officer in the King's service, who was miles away, the woman did not exactly know where) had «ent an urgent request to her to forward to him a pai'cel of shirts he had left in her charge when last in Pretoria. Could Mars, Junr., help her? He hesitated. Delilah pressed, ' and brought to her aid all the wiles and artifices she was possessed of. 'The man must have shirts,' thought Mars, Junr., and so, to the official mind, he fell. He promised lhat if the box which was shown him, and alleged to contain the distant warrior's apparel, were forwarded to a stated place by n given time he would communicate with an officer of his' acquaintance there, who in due course would send it on to him who was so much in need of shirts. Having obtained this assurance, the woman reported the result of her adventure to headquarters, and Mars, Junr., was eventually held to have disclosed information leading not only to the location of a column in tlie field, but also of the approximate .date upon which a convoy for that unit would be despatched from the supply depot at the place where, he had directed his temptress to send the parcel by the date he had mentioned!"

Colonials who made any length of stay in Pretoria will be able to estimate this story at its true worth. I gh*p it with ''due reserve."