Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 March 1900 — Side Lights on. the Boer War. [ARTICLE]

Side Lights on. the Boer War.

It is said that in MM the Boers save their first order for big guns and that at the tine they expended nearly half a million dollars with Krnpp of Germany, and about the same amount with an Austrian firm for smaller arms. The Krnpp guns were delivered in 1885, and included two of what was then the largest pattern for a pun in the world. These guns are forty-eight feet in length, weigh 120 tons, throw a shell weighing pounds and require 904 pounds of powder for each discharge. One of these guns has been dragged to a hill overlooking Ladysmith. The other is on the fortifications defending Pretoria. In 1985 another order for field guns of long range was placed with Krnpp. It waa in IK9U that the Grcnsot guns, those that have done the most effective fighting, were purchased. Several large orders for guas were placed at later dates. The important part played by carrier pigeons in the South African war is not generally known. At the outbreak of hostilities one of the first to place his pigeons at the disposal of the British Government was B. Lee of Pietermaritzburg. These birds were carried through to Ladysmith on an armored train the day before communication was shut off. They brought the first' news from Ladysmith to the British Govern meat. The Boers realising the advantage gained by the enemy from the nse of pigeons soon established a loft for training the birds in Johannesburg. « Nearly sixty-five yean ago, so the story runs, a party of Boer immigrants from Cape Colony came upon a little plain in the territory north of the Orange river, and as it first burst upon their eyes a woman in the party exclaimed: “It’s a Bloemfontein” (flower garden}. The plain was covered with wild flowers. and presented a glorious appearance to the first white people that had ever looked upon it. Thus was the capital of the Orange Free State founded and named. —jThe question of the employment of native Indian troops in the South African war is bring very generally discussed in India. The Indian native cavalry is one of the finest bodies of horse in the world. An argument for the employment of these troops is that the waste of cavalry will be great before the war is over, and that six months hence Grant Britain will be driven to employ her native cavalry whether she wants to or not. The widow of Gen. Symons, who waa one of the first British officers to fall in the war, has married again. Sir W. P. Symons. K. C. B„ was killed in the battle of Glencoe in October last. The lady's new husband is said to be about half her age. Human sympathy is always with the “under dog *in a fight. Cronje's remarkable stand against the British forces and the valor shown by the Boers in the face of terrible odds have won the Transvaalers praise and admiration the world over. - -2 — 2Boiler and his staff are actually living the life of a private. There has not been even a tent to cover the commanding generals. They eat from their knefes, with their shoulders against rocks. They sleep where they can. and their field work is carried on under a transport wagon. -s Consulting surgeons who have gone to South Africa are paid at the rate of $25,000 a year, with free passage to the acafl of war and return, and London papers are complaining that the sum is exorbitant. The artillery and cavalry horses of the Boers have all been inoculated against the “tsetse fly” and rinderpest, both of which are apt to play havoc with green hones in that district. Some of tKeJtocr^rifies^tahenjby^tlra mof* pattern made over thirty yews ago. The wife at President Btcya of too Orange Free State is the daughter of m English clergyman. >