CABLE NEWS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1508, 24 January 1901, Page 31

CABLE NEWS.

ANOTHER EFFECTIVE AMBUS- .. , • CADE. BRITISH TROOPS CAPTURED. A SHARP ENGAGEMENT. LONDON, January 15. Colonel White on the 3rd sent Oapvt&in Laing, with 150 of Lord Kitchener's bodyguard attached to .Major-General Knox’s column, towards Reitz, a town •In * the east of Orange River Colony, forty miles to the eastward of Linley. "While ascending a valley the detachment experienced showers of explosive bullets from kopjes six hundred yards distant on the right and left. The Boers numbered a thousand. The British retired, and meeting another force of five hundred Boers, galloped into a donga and fought from cover desperately. Captain Laing was shot through the heart. The enemy surrounded the small force, which, maintained a dogged resistance till the Boers threatened to kill the survivors. Lieut. Bateson galloped through the Boers and informed. Colonel White. Reinforcements were sent, and shelled the disappearing enemy, killing seventeen at ,ohe spot. ! THE INCURSION INTO CAPE COLONY, MOVEMENTS OF THE INVADING COMMANDOES. ; LONDON, January 15. ' It is estimated that there are two ; thousand Boers between Clanwilliam and Sutherland. Another commando of Boers is advancing from Beaufort West, on the railway 339 miles from Capetown. They are ell splendidly mounted, with plenty of spare horses * The invading Boers are extremely bitter at the refusal of the Cape Dutch to rise in rebellion. Two Hundred raiders attacked a British convoy at Damslaagte, twenty-eight miles north of Matjesfontpin, on the Cape railway, but were repulsed. Major-General De Lisle, with a strong column, including the New South Wales Mounted Infantry, has arrived at Piquetberg, eighty miles north of Capetown, via Sutherland. LONDON, January 16. Lord Kitchener reports that several small parties of raiders are returning from. Cape Colony across the Orange River, some Cape rebels accompanying them. The rebels surrendered. On© hundred and twenty German farmers have joined the Capetown Suburban Guard. The Cyclist Corps numbers three hundred. ’ A sqnadron of Johannesburg Mounted Rifles ambushed a party of Boers at Kalfontein on Sunday. Five of the enemy were killed, including Commandant Vanderb evert. A sharp fight occui*red at Murraysburg :on the 11th inst. Six of the British were killed, seventeen were wounded and five are missing, chiefly members of the South African .Light Horse and Brabant’s Horse. BOER DELUSIONS. LONDON, January 16. A thousand Boer refugees are being detained in camps at Pretoria, Kroonstad and Rhenoster Spruit. They declare that they understood Mr Kfiuger was still in the Transvaal, and that General De Wet was at Capetown, and that General Buller nad been driven back in Natal. MR KRUGER INVITED TO TURN LECTURER. LONDON, January 16. Mr Mulholland, an American millionaire, has invited Mr Kruger to visit and lecture in America. Surgeon-Captain Godfrey, of the New Zealand Mounted Infantry (Third Contingent), who was wounded at Rhenoster Kop, has returned to duty. The War Office is enlisting 5000 Yeomanry for a year or the duration of the war. After the engagement alt Belfast on the Delagoa Railway, on the 7th instant, seventy-two men. belonging to the Royal Irish and the iCmropshire Regiments were missing. A determined attack made at Blood river on a convoy proceeding to Vryheid, in the south-east Transvaal was repulsed. Boers are raiding farms five miles from Johannesburg. SYDNEY, January 16. Fifteen hundred applications have been received for the new contingent for South Africa. Captain Cox, who has just returned in the Orient, has offered his services. The Victorian force will consist of 504 officers and men. Colonel Price has again offered his services. South Australia’s contingent will comprise 240 officers and men. MELBOURNE, January 16.

The Government has cabled that a hundred young men have offered to join the Marquis of Tullibardine’s regiment of Scotch Horse.’ The Government will

take no responsibility in the matter beyond undertaking medical examination of the men. Sir Alfred Milner has cabled stating that the Orient will convey the Victorian Contingent to South Africa. DE WET BACK IN THE TRANSVAAL. LONDON, January 17. General De Wet has recrossed the Vaal River, and has joined the Transvaal commandoes. MAJOR MADDOCKS RETURNING. MELBOURNE, January 17. The steamer Damascus arrived to-day from Capetown with forty-two invalided Australians on board, under Major Maddocks, of New Zealand. DEATH OF A NEW ZEALANDER, (Received January 18, 0.34 a.m) LONDON, January 17. Private Daniel Clark, of the New Zealand Roughriders, has been killed at Klerks dor.p. [This message probably refers to 1617 Private D. Clarke, a member of No. 15 Company, Fifth Contingent, who enlisted from Temuka, where his mother resides.] THE PEACE PARTY AND DE WET. LONDON, January 16. General De Wet is enraged at the circulation of Mr Paul Botha’s pamphlet urging the submission of the Boers, and vows to slhoot the author. Mr Kruger, in the course of an interview, approved De Wet’s shooting (he peace envoys, as a proper revenge for the execution of Lieutenant Cordua, who was shot for being implicated in a plot to abduct Lord Roberts. COLONEL FRANCIS. FREMANTLE, January 17. Lieutenant-Colonel Francis and Troop, er Wilkinson, New Zealanders, invalided from the Cape, arrived by the P. and O. steamer China. The former was taken ill a few days ago, and is confined to his oalbin. BOTHA’S THREATENING TACTICS. LONDON, January 18. Two of the largest Boer commandoes are stationed at Roosenkal, twenty-five miles west of Lydenburg. in the east of the Transvaal, and in the western Magliesiberg, west of Pretoria. It is expected that General Botha is organising a raid on Natal. BOER OPERATIONS IN CAPE COLONY. ' LONDON, January 18. A patrol of Prince Alfred’s Guards (a volunteer corps enlisted at Capetown) surrendered, after two hours’ fighting, near Steynsburg, seventy miles southwest of Aliwal North. The men were stripped, and afterwards released. Three hundred Boers looted Aberdeen, in Cape Colony, 130 miles north-west of Port Elizabeth, but retreated on the advance of 100 British troops. The residents at the Cape peninsula, with the exception of officials and soldiers, Lave been forbidden to possess arms or ammunition. * After the Ist of February the whole of Cape Colony, with the exception of a few towns, will be under martial law. It is intended t o land ad litional naval guns at Capetown. A Boer commando has appeared in Little Namaqualand, in the extreme north-west of Cape Colony. MISCELLANEOUS. LONDON, January 16. Volunteer regiments are responding to Lord Roberts’s appeal with enthusiasm. Manitoba offers a thousand shots; Ottawa several thousand. LONDON, January 17. The authorities at Pretoria have prohibited anyone wearing khaki. Anyone wearing a costume resembing a British uniform will be liable t-o arrest and punishment. LONDON, January 18. Lord Kitchener reports that there are three thousand Boers at Carolina, in une east of the Transvaal. General Colville’s column has been engaged with the enemy at Vantonclershoek. The Boers were driven off with heavy loss. William Steyn, a peace delegate wiio was deputed to interview the Beers at Standerton, in the Transvaal., was arrested and sent to Piet Retief, near tn© Swaziland frontier, on a charge of treason. The systematic collection of Boer families and stock at convenient centres is stead?ly proceeding. Voluntary! refugees are given advantages over families whose heads are still with commandoes in the field. The refugees are mostly acquiescent to this course of action. The Australian Bushmen participated in the victory of the Highlanders under Colonel Grey at Ventersburg. The New Zealanders defeated eight hundred Boers to the westward of Ventersburg, thirty-five miles south of Kroonstad.

One Britisher was dangerously wounded; Four dead Boers and two wounded were found, together with many riderless horses. Lord Methuen attacked General De la Rey with a force of a thousand men to the westward of Taungs (eighty-five miles .north of Kimberley) and drove them southward, losing two killed l and five wounded. LONDON, January 19. Tile Boers surrounded Danieiskuil, in Griqualand West (fifty miles south of Kuruman), on the sth* inst. The attack on the place lasted for five days, the Boers threatening that unless it surrendered they would destroy all the houses, including the shelters for the women and children which were flying the white flag. The Boers ultimately retired to Reitfon.tein, twenty miles to the westward. (Received January 19, 7.31 p.m.) LONDON, January 18. Details of General Colville’s engagement at Vantondershoek last week show that during the march from. New Denmark to Valaklaagte, on the StandertonJohannesburg road, a force of seven hundred Boers attacked the baggage guard, consisting of three hundred men of the Rifle Brigade and fifty of the Standerton police. Simultaneously three hundred Boers charged the cavalry forming the rearguard, and forced .them back, but the enemy fled on seeing the bayonets of the riflemen hidden in a hollow. A British battery did good execution. General Colville had one man killed and fifteen wounded. LONDON, January 18. The British prisoners held at Helvetia and Belfast, on the Delagoa railway, have been released. Sir Alfred Milner’s departure from Capetown for Pretoria, has been indefinitely postponed. Pretoria is now full of troops. LONDON, January 18. Twenty Boers jumped from a transport on arriving at Ceylon, and took refuge on a Russian steamer bound for Odessa. No effort was made to- detain the vessel. Members of Yeomanry, Volunteer and Militia Corps are eagerly responding in supplying their proportion of volunteers and artillery required for the Cape. LONDON, January 19. The Portuguese authorities are transporting to Lisbon nine hundred Boer refugees now at Delagoa Bay. THE INVASION OF CAPE COLONY. LONDON, January 18.. Only a hundred colonials have joined Commandant Kruitzinger’s invading commando, which was recently reported at Richmond, about thirty miles east of Victoria West, on the main line of communications. LONDON, January 19. The advance of the raiders in the western districts of Cane Colony lias been checked, and the Boers are retiring on Calvinia, where the main commando remained. The situation in the midland section of Cape Colony is grave. The announcement of the disarmament of civilians came as a thunderbolt to the disloyalists. The penalty for the order has been fixed at seven years’ imprisonment, or a fine of £SOO with two years’ hard labour. DE WET’S FOLLOWERS. LONDON, January 19. A released trooper states that General De Wet’s commando is composed chiefly of foreigners. Their clothes and boots are worn out, but they have splendid horses. Natives are supplying them with mealies and fr'uit. GENERAL COLVILLE’S RETIREMENT. LONDON, January 19. Lieut.-General Sir Henry Colville, who was deprived of his command in South Africa by Lord Roberts after the surrender of Colonel Spragge’s Irish Yeomanry at Lindley, has been placed on the retired list from yesterday. HUNTER INVALIDED. LONDON, January 19. Lieut .-General Tucker has been appointed to the command at Bloemfontein vice Lieut.-General Sir Archibald Hunter, invalided. Major - General Clements succeeds General Tucker in command of the Seventh Division. IN DEFENCE OF COLONEL ROBIN. A NOTE FROM GENERAL MAHON. The Commander of the Forces has received the following letter from Brigar-dier-General Mahon, in reference to certain strictures upon Lieutenant-Colonel Robin, contained in a letter written by a trooper from- Westland, and published in the “West Coast Times”: “Heidelburg, 27th October, 1900. Dear Colonel Penton, —In answer to your letter of September sth, 1900, which I received to-day along with extract from ‘’West Coast Times” of August 23rd, 1900, I must say that the accusations therein contained astonished me. Th© New Zealand Contingent under the command of Lieut.-Colonel Rob-

in have been serving with me for over three months, raid a better lot of officers and men I would never ask for. Colonel Robin lias several times commanded his men under fire under my personal observation, and I have never had any cause to complain of the way in which he has done his duty. In fact, it has always been the contrary, and I have very often expressed to him and his men my appreciation of the work they have done. Quite recently I was ordered to leave an officer and 300 men of my command on an important duty, and 1 selected Lieut .-Colonel Robin and his men for that duty. I think it is a pity that newspapers publish letters like' the one enclosed', as they are generally the outcome of some individual spit©, but I do not think such letters can hurt my friend Colonel Robin, as he holds a very high character with the military, authorities in this country.—Yours sincerely > signed) B. Mahon, BrigadierGeneral. P.S. You can make any use you like of this letter.” WITH ROBERTS’S HORSE. The following extracts are from a recent letter from the young Featlierstenian who stowed away on a ship to South Africa, and afterwards enlisted in the Irish squadron of Roberts’s Horse. Writing from Krugersdorp, he says: “Nine days ago I was on the extreme flank, and had just come up a rise when I saw a fellcw on a black horse going slowly along, and he was dressed in black and had a black hat with a white puggaree and earned a gun on his back. I galloped down the rise, and as soon as he saw me and four others behind me he made off for the kopjes, but I gained on him, and he halted and dismounted to unsling his rifle. I levelled mine first, and he very quickly held up his hands, and I took his rine and bandoliers. He carried a Martini with fifty murderous-locking cartridges and he told one of our fellows, who speaks Dutch, that he did not think he would be caught as his Field Coronet had told him that all the English had been captured in their laager. Well, we gave him a surprise when he saw our camp that night., and since then he has had a taste of walking the country under the charge of the Fighting Fith New Zealand.” The writer also recounts an engagement at Potchefstroom. “The Irish Squadron,” he says, “had only ten men, including myself, under Lieutenant Montgomery and the Brigade was under General Clements. Well, at 3 a.m. the Boers opened the day by shelling at 3000 yard's with fifteen pounders and one pompom. Immediately all the New Zealanders were ordered out, our regiment taking the left flank.. We opened fire on the Boers with rifle at 500 yards, and after about fifteen minutes’ firing Lieutenant Montgomery saw tne Boers .leaving their position for another knopje, and with ten of us he charged after them. The Boers tried to hold low-lying ridges, but unsuccessfully, for we closed right on them, getting so near as tocapture five mounted men and one on foot.. The Beers fled and their right flank was turned; and after a general advance, the whole body, numbering 300 with five guns, under De La Rey, fled General Clements sent .for Lieutenant Montgomery, and told him that for fits gallantry he would be recommended for the D. 5.0.” THE MAGNIFICENCE OF WAR. Corporal James Thompson, who went to South Africa with the Queensland Imperial Bushme- writing from Rustenburg on November 11/ 1800, to his mother, at Barrier, says ;- r ‘We had two engagements out towards Mafeking. 1 was sent with two other men to scout a kopje, and when we galloped up on top and looked down the other side there were two Boers riding about 200 yards away. We thoughjb they were our men until they started to run away, and then we dealt it out to them, bub did not stop them. For the next hour or so we were pretty busy, and then most of the Boers cleared. But there wa3 one fellow who came riding tovvaids a farm house, and Lieutenant Lutterworth gave the order for a volley just when the Boer was about twenty from the house (the range was 2GOO yards), and just as we fired a woman ran out to meet the Boer, and. a bullet hit her on the back of the head, and came out of her forehead. W© been burning all the farm housea and everyfarm has women and childhsn on it W© are heartily sick of the work, for when wo do find any Boer© cur generals won’t let us go in and wipe them out. Nearly all the men out this, way are colonials, and the generals will get a shock if we have to keep on butning houses over women and children. " e t mm dl burning a house if the Beers do* any sniping out of,it; but when it comes to burning where no sniping has taken place, we will mutiny some of these days, and refuse to do it.” towards the close of the letter he says: Tnere is not much fun her© now; too much farm burning for me. And the non-commissioned officers always have to l do the actual setting fire to the houses. I told you about the snooting of that woman . Well, her father was taken prisoner, and' two days ago, while coming along, he tried to escape, and was shot dead.” r ,-^ ress Association, cablegram from that * “-