CONDITION OF JOHANNESBURG. LETTER FROM MR G. HUTCHISON, M.H.R.

Otago Witness, Issue 2437, 28 November 1900, Page 29

CONDITION OF JOHANNESBURG. LETTER FROM MR G. HUTCHISON, M.H.R.

Letters from Mr George Hutchison, member for Patea, dated ■ Johannesburg, October 13, do not give quite a- rosy colour to the state of affairs in and around that city, although he- himself writes in high spirits. There is no moving from place to place save under military permit, and railway travelling is not unattended by danger. Mx Hutchison, on arrival at Durban,' left' his family there and proceeded to Johannesburg, and an application to Lord Kitchener' «o allow them to join him was refused. .Lord Roberts, however, was not so inexorable, as. his staff officer, and with the Commander-in-chief's ~ permission they left Durban on Thursday, October 11, «.n"d were^expected at Johannesburg on Saturday, October 13 (the .'day Mr Hutchison wrote). ' The train had not arrived up to the (time of posting his letter. " I hear this morning, Mr Hutchison writes, " that the Boers have blown up" the line near Heidelburg, and that the tram will probably not be in till tSus evening. This is a silly gam© that the

Boers are playing-. It means reprisals on probably innocent friends, whose hou&es near the damaged line go up in flames. I do not imagine any danger to the trains, as they are not run at present except in daylight, and these marauders only creep out to wreck property and snipe at patrols in the daytime." Mr Hutchison continues : " I have been to Pretoria, and dined with Lord and Lady Roberts — a most gracious couple. I find things more settled there than at Johannesburg, to which the refugees are not yet allowed to return. The 10th of -this month was fixed as th© date for permission taking effect, and gome twenty-five or thirty thousand persons anxiously waiting for it, but the renewed depredations of the Boer? have postponed the time indefinitely, although it is not likely to be very long. I have taken a furnished /iouse — a villa, in facL — in the most delightful part of Johannesburg — : in the suburb of Doornfontein, an umbrageous part of what is just now mostly desert and dust. It is a sort of bungalow, and not too large ; every room will be in constant use. I have it only till the end of the year. It is. furnished, or was furnished, when the owner (Mrs David,, the widow of a successful Christian Jew) left it . some time before the war broke out. During, the Boer ro«ime, i!>e house was ' commandeered ' by some officious, but not official, person, who likewise commandeered other things, for which ',he got into gaol, when his wife "and family abandoned the house in disorder. 'Ah inventory being now taken, there are many things missing. Of many clocks there is not now one in the house. The plate and silver are' absent, said to be planted under the house somewhere. They will be a find for some" lucky individual by-and-bye. There is a superabundance of fine china, but a lamentable scarcity of knives and forks and ordinary delft-ware There is one tablecloth, which I have spread in preparation for tho?e to arrive to-day — the first family meal in Jolipmiofburg. I observe a shortage in sheets, and no doubt much else of which I have no knowledge. All this I get as a bargain for £20 a month, and water, electric light, and sanitation taxes. Eighteen months aoo. after Mrs David left, and before the war broke out. the house was let for £45 a month. As soon as has time to Ico'k about, we will have to seek for another plap°. Any number of housed ; the great majority of them, unfortunately, derelict, and no one authorised to deal with them. Ths plfce will have to go through a period of mixed deyicssion and inilation for a time. T,he crowd of refugee? will leturn bankrupt, and compete among tliernselvod for work. Tho merchants will have been, many of them, ruined by the commandeering of their svo-ks ; hut there will be anv- amount of money available for mining. We shall have the extreme* of poverty and riches for a time."