MILITARY SENTENCES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue 7386, 12 February 1902, Page 2

MILITARY SENTENCES.

"DON'T SHOOT 1 IT'S MY

FATHER I "

At Vryburg last month the assistant provost-marshall (Lieutenant S. M. Jones, • ' D.E.O.V.R.)', publicly pronounced the sentences imposed by a Military Court last month on certain rebels in this district. The most serious was that of Francour dv Toit, who was convicted of three charges — arson, treason, and attempted murder. He had taken a prominent part in burning the farmhouse of a man named Kearns, whom the Boers gave the option of joining them or losing all he had, and going into Vryburg. Dv Toit was actively in arniß against the King last September, and he took part in a fight at Grysrand, when one of the Yeomanry was wounded, and subsequently died. He was sentenced to death by hanging, but the sentence was commuted by the Commander-in- Chief to penal servitude for life.

J. Van Eeden, who was taken with Boer ammunition on him in the neighborhood of the enemy, and also had Government- property in his possession was sentenced to two years and fined £100. This sentence was commuted altogether, however, by Lord Kitchener. Van Eeden, who has the reputation of being a decent fellow and hard-working farmer, had a remarkable escape. It was on the occasion of the last fight outside Vryburg, when our men were retiring from Maritsani with stock recaptured from the Boers. The firing was warm and extended over a long line of country. Two members of a local corps suddenly encountered a mounted and armed Boer, and one of them raised his rifle, and would have shot him at once had not ' the other cried out : '• Don't shoot him ; it's my father 1" So it was. Papa surrendered, thanking his stars that the " Englishman " who took him was his own son ; and the trial above mentioned was the result.