ing of the shooting of these boys. At the close
of the evidence in chief there was something which looked like
implicating Kritzinger, but of that by Van Aswegen there is very
little left to-day. At first the evidence _re_ Mijnhardt was taken,
but the Court has ruled that this evidence cannot be accepted. Now
there is the evidence of Boltman. I do not say that Boltman did not
give his evidence fairly, but he must have made a mistake as
regards Kritzinger making use of the words he referred to. McCabe
says while he was on the farm nothing of the kind occurred. If
anything had been said he would have heard it. When McCabe and
Maasdorp came back no report was made that Kritzinger had said
anything of the kind. But there was a report made, and McCabe bears
it out that something was said by another member of the commando. I
would submit that Boltman mistook the other member of the commando
for Kritzinger. There is no getting over the evidence of McCabe,
and he is the person who ought to remember it. As McCabe says,
Kritzinger did not arrive until some hours after the boys had been
shot.

"I now come to the second charge--the charge of the shooting of the
boy John Thomas at Tweefontein. Now, sir, here again the boy was
clearly a spy. He carried two passes similar to those carried by
the boys mentioned in the first charge. He was unarmed. He was not
in uniform. He was there to spy the movements of the Boers.
Kritzinger would not have been responsible for the shooting of this
boy had he shot him. But here the evidence against him is even
weaker than in the first charge. Here there is no suggestion that
the boy was shot by any of Kritzinger's men. The evidence shows
that the boy was shot by a man serving under Smit. Smit was an
officer with an independent command, and, more than that, he had
been longer in service than Kritzinger himself, and was not under
Kritzinger. Here, too, there is no suggestion, as in the first
charge, that any message was taken to Kritzinger by the men who
shot this boy, John Thomas. None of Van Aswegen's men were sent to
Kritzinger. Van Aswegen himself did not go back. No one from
Kritzinger came to Van Aswegen. Van Aswegen was last seen by
Kritzinger on the 12th or 13th of February, 1901, and was not seen
again by him until a