Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 21, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 October 1899 — FIRST BLOOD IS SHED. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FIRST BLOOD IS SHED.

FIFTEEN BRITISH SOLDIERS ARE SLAIN BY BOERS. Aa'Armored Train la Destroyed Near Mafekinc—Victors Shell the Wreckage—Formal Declaration of War la Made—United States Is Notified. A dispatch from Cape Town, Africa, says that a British armored train from Mafeking was blown up and destroyed by the Boers at Vryburg Thursday evening. Fifteen British soldiers were killed and the first blood of the war shed. The Boers shelled the wreckage after the train was derailed. Vryburg is midway between Kimberley and Mafeking on the cape government railroad, which skirts the whole western frontier of the Transvaal and Orange Free State. War was declared Wednesday by the South African republic, the formal declaration going into effect at 10 o’clock Thursday Having determined to act on the initiative the moment the time specified in their ultimatum should expire, the Boers crossed the Natal border Thursday, thus committing a distinct act of war. The campaign now begun may have far-reach-ing consequences. The British may be driven out of South Africa, or the Boers may be reduced to their old position as a British dependency. The former result would be but the beginning of the dismemberment of the British empire. President Kruger erred in judgment when he refused to permit his burghers

to raid Natal three weeks ago. Then they might have swept through the colony without much opposition. Now the British forces have been greatly strengthened by the arrival of troops from India, and the task of reducing fortified towns, defended by experienced soldiers, is certain to prove tedious if not impossible. As long as the British remain on the defensive, as seems to be their policy, the Boers may occupy the famous Laing’s Nek, wipe out the 100 men of the naval brigade at Estcourt, destroy bridges and damage railroads, as reported by cable, but their object, the conquest of South Africa, will be as far away as ever. On the other hand, if the British troops at present in the colonies of South. Africa hold their own until the army corps from England reach the cape the prospect of an ultimate Boer victory is very doubtful. Real danger threatens British Bechuanaland, where, in Mafeking, Col. Baden-Powell, with a slender command, is awaiting probable extinction at the hands of Commander Cronje and his 4,000 burghers. Such a move would strengthen the Boers’ cause, secure native allies and perhaps induce a Dutch revolt in Cape Colony. All this may be accomplished, and yet the real campaign awaits the arrival of the 50,000 British soldiers under the leadership of strategical masters, whose wits and numbers are supposed to be a match for the native craft and courage- of the warlike Boer. Sympathy is largely with the Boers, and the nations of Europe are loud in their denunciations of Great Britain, but academical expressions of good will add nothing to the Transvaal chance of success. United States Notified. The State Department at Washington was notified on Friday of the withdrawal from Pretoria of Conyngham Greene, the British diplomatic agent to the South African Republic, and the existence of a state of war between Great Britain and that republic. Mr. Macrum, the American consul at Pretoria, has accordingly been instructed to undertake the care of the British interests in that section during the war. The notification came to the State Department in the shape of a note from Mr. Tower, the charge of the British embassy, there. The details of the transfer of British interests in case of war had been previously arranged, so that all that was necessary was the dispatch of a brief cablegram to Mr. Macrum at Pretoria. Th are is no present intention at the State Department to issue a proclamation of neptnality. It has come to be the custom to omit these proclamations until some emergency arises calling for their issue, and such an emergency is not expected to occur in South Africa.

LIEUT. GEN. WHITE, Who Is to Command the British Forces in Natal.