THE BOER WAR.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 10, 7 March 1901, Page 15

THE BOER WAR.

NOTES AND POINTS OF INTEREST TO CATHOLIC RE ADERS

GENEROUS ENEMIES. vr-n? he T Dublin correspondent of the London Times writes :— Mr William Holmes, Bon of Lord Justice Holmes, has given me leave to communicate a story which illustrates in a very striking manner Lord Roberts's chivalrous generosity towards a worthy foe. Mr Holmes i* one of the many vouner Irish barristers who ioined the Dublin Hunt Company of the Imperial Yeomanry, and took part in the affair at Lindley. In the last desperate bayonet charge of the company, the same in which the son of the Irish Master of the Rolls was killed, Mr Holmes was shot through the leg, and lay for some hours on the battlefield. During all that time he waß tended by a Boer named Vandersluis, who treated him with extreme kindnesß, and after nightfall walked four miles in search of a waggon in which to bring Mr Holmes into Lindley. On the following day Lord Methuen recovered the town, and Mr Holmes waa given over to the care of British doctors and nurses. It was found necessary to amputate his leg, and he lay for many weekß in the hospital. Meanwhile his friend Vandersluip, who had gone on commando with Prinsloo, surrendered with that general, and was deported to Ceylon. From there he addressed a letter to Mr Holmes in Dublin, reminding him of their acquaintance at Lindley, and expressing an earnest desire for permission to return home. In the absence of Mr Holmes, who was still in South Africa, the letter reached Lord Justice Holmes, and was forwarded by him to Lord Roberts, with the assurance that the statements were quite correct. Last week the Lord Justice received a reply, in which Lord Roberta Baid that he had read of with particular appreciation the Boer'a kindness to Mr Holmes, and had given immediate directions that Mr Vandersluis should be brought back from Ceylon to South Africa and reinstated in his farm. DOUBTFUL POLICY. The wiser heads of the military authorities have, according to the Manchester Guardian, convinced themselves that the policy of devastation has brought many hundreds of Boers into the field as regular fighters who in the earlier months of the war spent a good deal of their time on the farms. The farms have been destroyed, their owners have lost all, and they have gone back to the commandos ready to submit to far tighter discipline than they endured in the early stages of the war. The result is that Botha's influence over his whole army is suspected to have increased, while iv De Wet and Delarey he has found lieutenants at once more pliable and abler than the older Boer leaders, most of whom have disappeared. Even the number of the fighting Boers have not, it is now feared, been so seriously diminished as is generally supposed here. From November, 1899, to July, 1900, there were not, according to the calculations at the Boer headquarters, more than 25,000 men in the field at one time. Now, deducting prisoners and losses, it is thought that between 15,000 and 20,000 are still available. INVALIDED HOME. Father Rockcliffe, who had been under fire on many occasions in South Africa, is now in London in the Officers' Hospital. During the fighting at Riefast a shell struck a rock near to Father Rockcliffe, who was hit by a piece of stone that waa sent flying, and he was invalided home. A REQUIEM MASS FOR THE SOLDIERS WHO FELL IN THE AVAR, At the Church of the Benedictines, at Farnborough, a Solemn Requiem Mass took place on Wednesday, December 19, for the soldiers who fell in South Africa. Among those present were Lieut. General Sir W. Butler and Lady Butler, Lieut.-Colonel Robs of Bladensburg. and M. Pietrie and Mdlle. D'Allonville, representing the Empress Eugenic. The Mass was sung and the imprespive service conducted by the members of the French Benedictine Priory. EX-PRESIDENT KRUGEB AND THE NUNS. The late Mother Mauritia, who died recently ia South Africa, used to give an amusing account of an interview she had with exPresident Kruger, to whom the very name of the Catholic Church suggested the ' Scarlet Woman.' It appears that kis State owed her convent at Potchefstroom some £10. For some reason or other the amount was withheld, and the good Sisters at Potchefstroom looked upon its recovery as hopeless. The good offices of Mother Mauritia were sought, and she bearded the lion in his den. It is hardly necessary to say that she mollified the old President, and came away with the cash, or at least an order for it. THE ATTITUDE OF THE HIGH COMMISSIONER. Dr. Kolbe, the well-known Catholic priest, speaking at the Africander Congress, said if Great Britain persisted in her present policy, the Afrikanders would make South Africa the most uncomfortable corner of the Empire until the injustice done to South Africa was recognised and remedied. He declared, with no desire to be personal, that the present High Commissioner's attitude was not what the attitude of a Governor should be.

The personality of the late Sir William Stokes, of 5, Merrion Square, Dublin, Surgeon-in-Ordinary to the Queen, etc., who died at Pietermaritzburg on August 18, is entered at £11,046 8s lid. Letters of administration to the deceased's estate have been granted to his widow, Lady Jane E. Stokes.

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