THE BOER WAR.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 43, 25 October 1900, Page 5

THE BOER WAR.

NOTES AND POINTS OF INTEREST TO CATHOLIC READERS.

A THANKSGIVING OFFERING.

Bishop Gaughran, in the name of the Catholics of Kimberley, has sent an offering to the Church of the Sacred Heart, Montmartre, Paris, in thanksgiving tor their Bafety during the four months' siege of the town.

BT. AIDAN'S CATHOLIC COLLEGE, GRAHAMSTOWN.

A letter from Nazareth House, Kimberley, dated 29th July, says : 4 The Sisters who know Mr. Mandy will be sorry to hear of the death of his eldest son. He went to the front about a fortnight ago, took fever, was sent back to Kimberley, had an operation, and died under it. He is the forty-ninth boy from St. Aidan's Catholic College, Grahamstown, who has died during the war either of fever or wounds.'

A CHANGE.

Time effects many changes. There are two States less in the world to-day than there were a year ago. The Transvaal and the Orange Free State have during the past twelve months lost their independence. Wednesday, the 10th inst, was the anniversary of the declaration of war against Great Britain by the South African Republic. Ex-President Kruger's ultimatum was handed to the British Agent at Pretoria on October 9, 1899. Messrs Kruger and Steyn have no longer a country, and the former is on his way to Europe to seek an asylum in Belgium or Holland. Many lives have been sacrificed on both sides, and millions have been wasted on war materials, whioh might be employed to better advantage in promoting the welfare of the mat sea.

THE COMMISSIONER OF WINBURG.

Captain E. De Pentheny O'Kelly, Sixth Lancashire Fusiliers, the newly appointed commissioner of Winburg and Ficksburg, in the Orange River Colony, was educated at the famous Catholic College, Stonyhurst, is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and of the Society of Antiquaries. He was Borne time an inspector of agrioulture in New South Wales, and before the South African campaign was engaged in pacifying Ujiba, West Africa.

MILITARY RED TAPE.

Here is a story illustrative of what is styled military stupidity : — At Capetown a sick volunteer was ordered to embark for England. But he happened to be an Australian volunteer, so he objected. He was sternly informed that his name was down on the list, and he must get aboard. In vain he protested that his home was in Australia, and that he had not a friend in England. His name was down, and he had to go aboard. That was all the satisfaction he oould get. He is now living (says an exchange) on the generosity of a Birmingham jeweller, with whom, fortunately, he came into contact on the voyage home, and declares his intention to ' have it out ' with the War Office when he has fully recovered hie health.

THE SPION KOP DISASTER.

A cable message received during the past week stated that troops lined both sides of the road for miles on the way out from Lydenburg, and continuously cheered General Sir* Redvers Buller, the leader of the Ladysmith relief column, as he passed on his way. It is evident that when General Bullw returns to England certain explanations will be neoessary. A Home paper of a recent date says : — We have by no means heard the last of the Spion Hop blunder. It will inevitably become the subject of a long and acrimonious discussion, all through the imbeoility of tho War Office. When the Spion Kop despatches were published, Conservatives as well as others wondered what could be the object of such a policy. No sound reason was ever alleged for exposing to the world the differences of generah in the midst of a campaign. But the worst of the remarkable indiscretion is that it has made further explanations neceseary. Sir Charles Warren, who has been the chief sufferer in connection with the affair, has returned home, and is naturally anxious to prove that he was not to blame. He has sent to the War Office a detailed defence of his conduct, and has communicated to the representative of a news agency an exculpation of himself which is an impeachment of Sir Redvers Buller. Hia plea amounts to this— that he was opposed to the seizure of Spion Kop and proposed to Sir Redvers an alternative scheme which was actually adopted before the relief of Ladysmith. When Sir Redvers Buller comes home he will, we may presume, have something to say in reply to this version of the affair, and it is difficult to see when the dispute will end— a dispute which might have been avoided if the War Office had had ordinary common sense.

kruger's legal adviser.

Mr. Michael T. Farrelly (the Daily Chronicle saye), late legal adviser to President Krujrer, from whose pen is announced a work on the Settlement in South Africa after the War, is an Irishman, who commenced hia career at Trinity College, Dublin, where he gained many honors, and was afterwards for a time a member of the Senate of his Alma Mater. He came to London some time in the eighties, and joined the Middle Temple. On his call to the Bar he won the Barstow scholarship in jurisprudence, constitutional, and internatio nal law, at that time the blue riband of legal prizes. Mr. Farrelly only practised in London for a short time, but he was indefatigable writer upon international law questions, and he speedily became a recognised authority. He defended the prisoner in the Chelsea dynamite case at the Old Bailey, and when Jabez Balfour was hiding in South America he advised friends on nu behalf as to the question of eztradiotion. Mr. Farrelly always supported the Krugerite opinion an to the non-exifltenoe of the suzerainty, and wrote an elaborate tractate on

the subject after he went to the Transvaal, in which he pressed the arguments he had been one of the first prominently to advocate in the Press in this country. He got in touch with the then Government at Pretoria very Boon after establishing himself in the Transvaal, and his legal services were immediately requisitioned. He is said to have drafted several of the despatches to Mr. Chamberlain, and for one of them he received the handsome fee of 1000 guineas. Lawyers' fees in the erst Republic were very high, and Mr. Kruger and his friends were lavish in this as in other departments of pxppnditure. At a comparatively early stage of the negotiations between Pretoria and London, Mr. Farrelly persistently warned Mr. Krngfer of the necessity of adopting a reasonable attitude, but these counsels only incensed his employer, who dispensed with his services some time before the war broke out.