This is a transcription of a column in South Africa Magazine, February 3, 1900, titled Domestic Announcements:

(Announcements inserted under this heading are charged for according to length.)

BIRTHS

BRAINE—On January 2, at Walmer, Port Elizabeth, the wife of C. Dimond H. Braine, C.E., Public Works Department, of a son.

BUCHAN, Mrs. J., Durban, December 31, a son.

COULSON, Mrs. A. C., Congella, January 2, a son.

DAVIS, Mrs. O., Durban, December 29, a daughter.

D’ENTON, Mrs. L., Port Elizabeth, Dec. 29, a son.

ELLIS, Mrs. R. J., Maitland, Cape Colony, January 1, a daughter.

EVANS, Mrs. S. J., East London, December 21, a daughter.

GRANT, Mrs. E. P., Durban, December 30, a son.

HORSLEY, Mrs. D., Greyville, January 2, a son.

HURRY, Mrs. G., Port Elizabeth, December 28, a daughter.

KNOX, Mrs. R. A., Umzinto, Dec. 24, a daughter.

MAASDORP, Mrs. G. H., Graaff-Reinet, Jan 1, a son.

MURRAY—On January 26, at 24, Osborne Place, Aberdeen, Mrs. Charles Murray, of a daughter.

PADDON, Mrs. T. E., Grahamstown, Dec. 24, a son.

REID, Mrs. G. W., Durban, January 2, a son.

SHERRIFFS, Mrs. W., East London, Dec. 24, a son.

SIMON, Mrs. F., Durban, January 4, a son.

MARRIAGES

ASTON, F. S. D.—SAUNDERSON, M. S., East London, December 21.

BUTLER, C. H. J.—BATTEN, M. D., Durban, January 1.

DURNO, Rev. J.—MACANDREW, E. E., Port Elizabeth, December 28.

JAMIESON, F.—FIDDES, G. S., Durban, January 1.

MITCHELL—JOHNSTONE—On January 4, at Cape Town, by the Rev. Mr. Maclure, John Thomas Mitchell, Assistant Manager, East Rand Mines, Boksburg, Transvaal, youngest son of the late George Mitchell, Inspector, G.P.O., Edinburgh, to Maggie Ainslie, third daughter of James Johnstone, merchant, 9 Gillespie Place, Edinburgh.

DEATHS

ADAMES—On December 4, at Bulawayo, of typhoid fever, Ernest Gribbon, youngest son of James Adames, of Green Bank, Lewes, aged 30.

BRANCH, B. B., Queenstown, January 2, aged 28.

BURNE, Miss F. O. T., Umhlali, Dec. 30, aged 15.

CHAPPEL, Mrs. M., Tarka, December 27.

DE ROUGEMONT—On January 23, killed in action at Chieveley, Natal, Harold Wake De Rougemont, Captain South African Light Horse, second son of the late Commander Frank Rougemont, R.N., and Mrs. De Rougemont, of Bradwell, Oxon, aged 22.

EASTON, T. J., Grahamstown, January 1, aged 68.

GARVEY—On January 24, killed in action at Spion Kop, Lieutenant Henry Wiltshire Garvey, 1^st Border Regiment, youngest son of Toler R. Garvey, of Thornvale, King’s Co., aged 23.

GOOSEN, N. J. A., Tarka, December 22, aged 40.

GRANT, Mrs. W., Port Elizabeth, Dec. 27, aged 49.

GRANT—On January 24, killed in action at Spion Kop, Robert Josceline Grant, 3^rd Battalion King’s Royal Rifles, aged 22, dearly-loved son of Lieut.-General Sir Robert and Lady Grant.

HAND, N., Cambridge, December 23, aged 64.

HAUSHAHN, A., East London, December 24, aged 58.

HIGGO, Mrs. W. G., Cape Town, aged 50.

KINLOCH—On January 6, killed in action at Ladysmith, A. David Kinloch, Volunteer Hotchkiss Detachment, second son of the late Colonel Kinloch, R.A., of Gourdie, Perthshire, aged 30.

LUYT, Mrs. M. S., Woodstock, Jan. 5, aged 89.

MACKENZIE—On January 24, at De Aar, South Africa, of enteric fever, Cortlandt Gordon Mackenzie, Captain Royal Artillery, and of Foxton Grange, Market Harborough.

MCLACHLAN—On Christmas Day, shot in the Market Square, Harrismith, Orange Free State, for refusing to fight against his own countrymen, John McLachlan, junr., eldest son of John McLachlan, of Wandsworth and grandson of the late John McLachlan, of Lambeth, aged 30.

Miscellaneous articles on the same page:

DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS

The debate on the amendment of Lord E. Fitzmaurice to the Address in reply to the Queen’s Speech was resumed.

Sir F. Flannery, continuing the speech which was interrupted by the adjournment last night, asked whether the amendment, if not intended to reconcile divergent views, was patriotic, whatever might be its affect on party it could do no good to the country. If it were to succeed a general election must follow at a time not for party dissension but for closing all party ranks, by showing a united front to our foes. (Cheers.)

Mr. Bryce maintained that the debate had become absolutely unavoidable. Everybody in the country was asking why we were at war. (Cries of “No.”) They desired to know the causes that had brought us into our present position. Nothing but a sense of duty had induced the Opposition to undertake their unpleasant task. The Government would have done far better if they had waited longer before beginning their policy of redressing the grievances of the uitlanders. The grievances were bad, but the war was worse. Those grievances in a far-away corner of the earth were a small matter—(cries of “Oh”)—in comparison with the cost of the present war. Instead of going upon the uitlanders’ grievances in order to get a casus belli, the Government elected the question of the franchise in the Transvaal, and upon that question they could not use any argument except that of persuasion. It did not contain any casus belli, as we had no franchise rights for our subjects. (Hear, hear, from the Opposition.)

(Left sitting)

LITERATURE

A CENTURY OF WRONG. By F. W. Reitz, State Secretary of the South African Republic (London: Review of Reviews Office, Mowbray House, Norfolk Street, W.C.).—Audi alteram partem is the motto which adorns the title page of Mr. F. W. Reitz’s statement of the case for the two Republics, entitled “A Century of Wrong,” and prefaced by his “brother Briton,” Mr. W. T. Stead. We gladly hear it; and what is more, we can distinguish the low sad note of pathos which runs through the writer’s pleadings. It is the swan song of a dying cause, and as such it must evoke the pity even of those who best know the inherent corruptness of the Boer oligarchy. The Boers have in them the makings of a splendid race, but their government hitherto has deprived them of their birthright of true liberty. They will recover it under the beneficent rule of Great Britain. It is impossible to refrain from paying a tribute to the eloquence with which Mr. Reitz pleads the hopeless cause of the two Republics. But his history is painfully distorted, and into every act of British diplomacy he reads the most sinister of motives. In his conclusion he speaks thus of Great Britain’s glory:--

The orchids of Birmingham are yellow. The traditions of the greatest people on earth are tarnished and have become yellow. The laurels which Britannia’s legions hope to win in South Africa are sere and yellow. But the sky which stretches its banner over South Africa remains blue. The justice to which Piet Retief appeals when our fathers said farewell to the Cape Colony, and to which Joachim Prinsloo called aloud in the Volksraad of Natal when it was annexed by Great Britain; the justice to which the burghers of the Transvaal entrusted their case at Paarde Kraal in 1880 remains immutable, and is like a rock against which the yeasty billows of British diplomacy dissolve in foam.

That is a very fine passage. For literary effect it could hardly be surpassed. But it has one defect. It is not true. The rock of justice is indeed immutable, and even the blunders of British diplomacy, caused in the past by childish trustfulness in Boer “simplicity,” will not in the end avail to shake it. The criminal negligence of British Governments and the War Office has enabled “the little child” among nations to gird up its loins and arm itself to the teeth in order to secure its complete emancipation from the restraints which every civilized people imposes upon itself. Mr. Reitz recapitulates all the old arguments in favour of arbitration and against suzerainty, and endeavours once more to catch the unwary British reader in the meshes of his fine-spun theories and his quibbles about international law. The essential facts, however, remain incontrovertible. These are that residents in the Transvaal who were made to bear all the burdens of citizenship were accorded none of its rights or privileges, although these were guaranteed to them by Convention. This in itself was serious enough so far as the good government of the Transvaal was concerned, and moreover, it reacted most perniciously upon the whole of South Africa. But it is evident now that the principle of Dutch racial predominance thus given effect to in the Transvaal was meant to be extended as soon as possible to the whole of South Africa. If there was any doubt of this before, it cannot remain after one has read Mr. Reitz’s book.

The Army and Navy Gazette contains this week an interesting coloured plate depicting types of the Honourable Artillery Company of London.

Messrs. Williams and Norgate are the publishers of an exceedingly useful manual on “Self-Aid in War, with Practical Hints for the Cavalry Wounded in South Africa,” written by Surgeon-Major T.F.S. Claverhill.

The Amateur Photographer of this week contains an article by Ernest Carr on “Campaigning with the Camera,” which has a very special interest in view of the present situation on the Tugela. The writer contends that the camera could render most invaluable help in connection with reconnaissances of positions actually held by the enemy.

Among the many pictorial productions occasioned by the war, “Celebrities of the Army” and “The Transvaal War Album,” both published by George Newnes, Limited, take a very high place. The first issue of the former contains admirable coloured portraits of Sir Redvers Buller, Lord Wolseley, Sir F. Forestier-Walker, and Colonel Baden-Powell.

“Commandeered by Kruger” is the title of an entertaining narrative in the Windsor Magazine for February. The writer thus sums up the advantages of the Boer in war:--“The strength of the Boer lies in the quickness of his mobilization, his adaptability to his surroundings, his ability to feed himself and his horse without a commissariat, and his wonderful faith in Almighty God!”

We have received the February issues of the Photogram and the Anglo-Russian; an “Illustrated Souvenir of the City of London Volunteers,” issued at twopence from the offices of the City Press; “British War Songs”—a capital shillingsworth—published by Charles Sheard and Co.; the Wide World Magazine, the Strand Magazine, the Sunday Strand, the Captain, and the Incorporated Accountants’ Journal.

The fourth annual report of the Rhodesia Chamber of Mines has just reached this country, its production this year having been delayed by the disorganized state of business arising from the war. Extracts, culled from the Rhodesian papers, have already been given in our columns. The full report contains exceedingly useful tables giving an analysis of gold production from monthly reports from September, 1898, to June, 1899, the total output of the Geelong Mine, and details of work done upon other properties.

It is said that Lord Beaconsfield, a few weeks before his death, in 1881, spoke very strongly to a member of the Gladstone Government, during a private conversation, concerning the stopping of the Transvaal War after the reverse of Majuba Hill. The Conservative leader, according to the story, shook his head and remarked:--“We might easily have vanquished the pigmy; we may have to fight the giant in twenty years’ time.”

In conjunction with the Archbishop of Cape Town and the military authorities the Church Army is arranging for a number of thoroughly-experienced Evangelists to proceed to the front in South Africa for the purpose of assisting the military chaplains among the troops and in the hospitals. The first of these Evangelists will sail in the Norham Castle, and it is expected that a number more will quickly follow. The entire cost will be borne by the Church Army.

In the House of Commons at Ottawa on Thursday, Mr. Bourassa, a French-Canadian member, objected to the adoption of the Address in reply to the Speech from the Throne until the full correspondence between Britain and Canada with respect to Canada’s participation in the South African war had been laid on the table. Sir Wilfred Laurier, in order to afford full consideration for the subject, consented to the adjournment of the House until February 8.

Regards,

Ellen Stanton

Email: harprulz@bellsouth.net