THE TRANSYAAL CRISIS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5501, 28 February 1896, Page 2

THE TRANSVAAL CRISIS.

THE ENGLISH PRISONERS. Our London correspondent sends us the following account, from an English journal, of the officers who are now on' trial with Dr Jameson for the abortive invasion of the Transvaal: — The English prisoners are a set of men whose lives have been singularly adventurous for an age accounted prosaic. Sir John Willoughby joined the Inniskilling Dragoons from the militia in 1880, an\i before that year was out was transferred to the Royal Horse Guards, on whose roll he has been borne since. He became lieutenant in 1881, captain in 1887, and major early last year. He fought with his regiment in Egypt, and took part in the cavalry charges at Kassassin and Tel-el-Kebir. Then he took to pioneering in South Africa under Mr Cecil Rhodes, made a fortune — or is understood to have done so — and became Commander of the Chartered Company's forces. He was a prominent figure in the Matabele war, and is not only a soldier, a sportsman, a dead shot, and ex-owner of a racehorse which ran a dead heat with St Gatien, but is one of the keenest men of business living and a director of more companies than we can count. He was born in 1859, succeeding the fourth baronet (the distinguished member of the India Council, who took a leading part in the suppression of infanticide and suttee in Western India) when a boy at Eton, is a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, and is the wearer of several medals. He is unmarried — a qualification shared by all Mr Ehodes's young men. Major the HonH. F. White, belongs to the Grenadier Guards, whom he joined in 1878, becoming Major in 1894, being shortly after permitted to join the South Africa Company's service, His brother y Captain the Hon R. White, also a prisoner, was foi\ a short time- in the Derbyshire Regiment before joining the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in 1882. Captain C. H. Villiers is, like Sir J. Willoughby, an officer of the Blues. He Avas, however, nearly two years in the West India Regiment before being appointed to the Horse Guards in 1889, becoming Captain in the latter in 1894. He has not yet been a year in the Chartered Company's service. Mr C. P. Foley, another of tfce prisoners, is a brother of Mr Henry St George Foley, ■precis writer at the Foreign Office, and is a well-known cricketer, he having formerly distinguished himself as a member of the Eton, Cambridge and Middlesex teams. He was a captain in the Royal Scots Militia, and went out to the Transvaal in March last, having an acquaintance with Dr Jameson, as well as with Sir John Willoughby and others who are connected officially with the British South Africa Company. For some time he was at Mafeking, and he appears to have been there employed in breaking-ln remount horses. Towards the end of November he went from Mafeking to Pittsani with sixty horses.