Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 May 1900 — BOER AND BRITON. [ARTICLE]

BOER AND BRITON.

Rigid censorship is held over news from Natal. British are accumulating stores at Smakleel. Johannesburg women are forming a police corps. Boers north of Newcastle are falling back on Majuba. Methuen is advancing along the ssuth bank of the Vaal. British say the Orange Free Staters are tired of the war. Boers’ supply of smokeless powder is said to be exhausted. British authorities decline a proposition to exchange prisoners. Since leaving Bloemfontein Roberts’ casualties are very slight. Boers are said to have .abandoned the Biggarsbetfe Mountains. Boer commandos have been ordered by Kruger to evacuate Natal. Kroonstadt is two-fifths of the way from Bloemfontein to Pretoria. The story of a plot to kill Sir Alfred Milner is ridiculed in Pretoria. There is talk in Pretoria that Kruger is preparing to leave the capital. Boers have dynamited Laing’s Nek tunnel and destroyed the railway. Roberts is to make an example of three men who fired on the white flag. Correspondent Speneer Wilkinson fleclares the Boers are demoralised. Boer envoys at Washington place no significance on relief of Mafcking. British forces are reported northeast of Ladybrand and Basutoland border. * Two steamers left New Orleans Friday with 2,950 mules for the British army. Commander Hloft, reported captured by the British, is a grandson of Kruger. Natal Parliament has passed to third reading a bill for a loan of *5,000,000. London believes the Boers’ next stand will be on the ridges near Johannesburg. The Orange Free State capital has been moved from Kroonstadt to Heilbron. Col. Baden-Powell is reported slightly wounded in a skirmish outside Mafeking. Gen. Roberts has 200,000 men to operate on a front 200 miles wide from Fourteen Streams to the Biggarsberg. Against thia army the Boers have only 25,000 men. Gen. Aswogan of the Boer forces was killed in an engagement near the Vaal river. Peace negotiations may be opened in the Raad despite the protests of Kruger and Steyn. British war office wants the volunteers to be available at any time for home or foreign service. Under cover of heavy bombardment, the British Infantry crossed the Vaal river, close to Kalmberg; In a speech at Birmingham Secretary Chamberlain predicted that the Boer republics would become a crown colony.