Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 21, Number 53, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 March 1900 — BRITISH GAIN IS LOST. [ARTICLE]

BRITISH GAIN IS LOST.

Boers Force Plumer’* Column Back to Crocodile Pools. The retirement of Col. Flttmer’s fore* to Crocodile Pools, which is fully confirmed by the British war office, leaves the relief of Mafeking entirely dependent upon the advance of the column from Kimberley. The tactics bf the Boer commander were excellent'. He did not allow Plumer to make too close an approach to Mafeking, but drove back his outposts and advanced guard and then attacked the British camp. Col. Plumer, finding himself in the presence of a superior force, retreated front Lobaisi northward. His losses were slight. The Boer commander, having prevented the raising of the siege, can now return to Mafeking and resume operations there. After a week of Bloemfontein dispatches telling of daily Boer captures and surrenders the news of the attacks on Plumer Is a slight shock to British complacency and wakens the public to the fact that' the spirit of the Boers outside of the Free State is by no means broken. No prospect of relief for Mafeking is offered by Methuen’s column from Kimberley. His forces are still at Warrenton, forty miles north of Kimberley, and apparently have not yet crossed the Vaal river. A .dispatch from Warreutou says that an artilery duel took place on the river the 21st, and that the Boers’ gun? were/sijkmce’d. The British suffered no casualties.