uropean
death-rate varying from 16.7 in Norway to 33.2 in Hungary,[265] and a
children's death-rate of 300 per thousand, as compared with the 208
per thousand of the contemporary rate of infant mortality in
thirty-three great towns of the United Kingdom, or in Birkenhead alone
of 362 per thousand. And from this time forward the death-rate of the
refugee camps was rapidly reduced. The reason for this reduction is
significant. By the development of the blockhouse lines the British
military authorities had been enabled to protect their supplies from
the attacks of the guerilla leaders. In other words, Lord Kitchener
was now able to defend the Boer non-combatants against the efforts
made by their own leaders to deprive them of food and other
necessaries of life. And ultimately the mortality in the Burgher Camps
was reduced to a point "much below the normal rates under ordinary
local circumstances."[266]

[Footnote 263: For the grotesque, repulsive, and even fatal
remedies employed by the Boer women in the treatment of their
children in sickness, the reader is referred to the medical
reports on the condition of the refugee camps published in
the Blue-book.]

[Footnote 264: The figures are those given by Miss Hobhouse,
as based upon the official returns (_The Brunt of the War_,
pp. 329-31).]

[Footnote 265: _I.e._ annual per 1,000 on a basis of 25 years
(1874-98).]

[Footnote 266: Cd. 1,163, p. 159. See also _ibid._, p. 151,
and p. 178. Lord Kitchener's reply to the official Boer
complaint against the system of the Burgher Camps (made by
Acting President Schalk Burger), is as follows:

"Numerous complaints were made to me in the early part
of this year (1901), by surrendered burghers, who stated
that after they laid down their arms their families were
ill-treated, and their stock and property confiscated by
order of the Commandant-Generals of the Transvaal and
Orange Free State. These acts appear to have been taken
in consequence of the circular dated Roos Senekal, 6th
November, 1900, in which the Commandant-General says:
'Do everything in your power to prevent the burghers
laying down their arms. I will be compelled, if they do
not listen to t