WANTON CRUELTY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7293, 4 January 1902, Page 4

WANTON CRUELTY.

— * ... GOITGH'S MEN STRIPPED OF EVERYTHING. The conduct of the Boers, after the engagement at Blood River Poort, was shocking, writes the war correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph." Some of the dead were stripped of nil but undervest and drawers, and; many of the living had to- gird their bare loins with sacking^ and pieces of torn cloth. Others wore the cast-off garments of the Boers. During two nights it stormed and rained, and the weather was bitingly cold. Wounded and unwourided, the soldiers an aged Roman •Catholic priest, Father Wurtzberg, declares, bore their cruel bufferings uncomplainingly. It was their misfortune, they said, and the torture they endured wrung no moaning nor reproaches from their lips. Some of the older Boers helped to collect the wounded and assist them, and of these the soldiers spoke kindly, just as they expressed their heartfelt thanks for such small services as the good "Padre" and the few doctors were enabled to render -them. That the Boers used expanding bullets is beyond dispute. I have seen cartridge-cases and pieces of lead extracted! in the Vryheid hospital from the bodies of Gough's men. When the brutal Boers roughly lifted the late Captain Dick's badly-shattered leg, to pull his boot off, a brother officer cried. " Don't do that, but take my boots instead." The ruffians paid no heed, but- hauled off the now deceased officer's boots and his fingerring.