DEATH OF MRS KRUGER

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVI, Issue 12560, 23 July 1901, Page 5

DEATH OF MRS KRUGER

■ ❖- HOW THE EX-PRESIDENT RECEIVED

THE NEWS,

PROBABLE EFFECT ON THE WAR, United Press Association—Ey Electric Telegraph—Copyright.

LONDON, July 21. The death of Mrs Kruger is announced. (Received July 22, 10.30 p.m.) LONDON, July 22.

Mrs Kruger died at Pretoria, after three days suffering from, pneumonia. She was sixty-seven years of age. (Received July 23, 12.31 a.m.)

The Official Staff and numerous relatives were present in Pretoria, and surrounded the death bed of Mrs Kruger. A Belgian and two German doctors had latterly been in attendance. Although informed of his, wife’s illness Mr Kruger was dumbfounded on hearing of her death. He buret into tears and asked to be left alone. He had frequently spoken of rejoining his wife. His friends say that the only tie binding him to South Africa has been broken. Many anticipate that the death will have a disheartening effect on tbs Boers still fighting. - , (Received July 23, 1.30 a.m.) The “Times’ says that Mrs Kruger exerted womanly influence more than once, notably after the Jameson raid, on the side of moderation. (Received July 23, 12.26 a.m.) The English newspapers express genuine sympathy at the death of Mrs Kruger. The dead lady was a cousin of Mr Kruger’s first wife, Miss du Plessis. Air Alfred Stead recently contributed a sketch of “ Mrs Kruger at Home ” 'to rhe “Revue des Revues.” Speaking of Mrs Kruger he says: —She is content to bo in subjection to her husband. An excellent housekeeper and mother, she knows nothing of the outer world, and less, if possible, of politics. But, on the other hand, she is a walking medical encyclopedia, with a remedy for every ailment, ever on the lookout for one more recipe to add to am already enormous collection. It may be doubted, however, whether she is quite so ignorant either as her husband would wish, or as the outside world believes. She was very popular with the Boers, chiefly because of her unfailing sympathy with suffering. Bat she is hardly more progressive than her husband, and even refused to be present at the opening of the Pretoria railway. “I have lived fill now without seeing those things,” she said, “and 1 1 can do so still.” Some light is thrown on the position Mrs Kruger held in her own country ini Mr H. 0. Hillegas’s account of “ The-Boer Girl of South Africa,” in the “Ladies? Home Journal.”

“The Boer girls:,”, he wrote, “whether city or country bred, find in Madame Kruger, the wife of the President, one of their sex whom they adore. Their love "for the ‘ first lady of the land ’ is almost akin to worship, and her picture is to be seen m a prominent position in every Boer homestead in the country. Madame Kruger is a typical Boer woman of the older generation. Her ancestors were well-born Hollanders, who went to South Africa two hundred years ago to escape religious persecution. Although the President is several times a millionaire, Madame Kruger directs all the details of the management of the Executive Mansion in Pretoria, the capital city of the She has several native servants to doth© laborious part of the household work, bub she insists upon preparing and serving her husband’s meals and brewing his cofloe without assistance from any one. The Executive Mansion is the rendezvous of every Boer who visits Pretoria, and Madame Kruger shares equally with her husband the pleasant task of entertaining ail who come l in a manner which is highly gratifying to the admirers of democratic institutions. There are no social distinctions among the Boers, and the country girl, jyhq has never been outside the boundaries oh her father’s farm is on the same social plane at the Executive Mansion as the city girl who has just returned from a Parisian ladies’ seminary; nor does the city girl pretend to be socially superior. Vanity is nob a characteristic of the Boer girl; on the contrary, it is her love of others that gives her a high place in the opinions of those who have seen her.”