it difficult for the medical men to remove them in the first
stages of the disease. The result was a rapid spread of the epidemic,
which was the more fatal as many of the sufferers were in low health
owing to the privations unavoidably endured in the journey from their
own homes to the camps. Not only was the spread of the disease assisted
by the mother, but in her mistaken zeal she frequently used remedies
which were as fatal as the disease. Children died of arsenical-poisoning,
having been covered from head to foot with green paint; and others of
opium-poisoning, having quack drugs which contain laudanum administered
to them. 'In Potchefstroom as at Irene,' says Dr. Kendal Franks, 'the
death-rate is attributable not so much to the severity of the epidemic
as to the ignorance, perverseness, and dirty habits of the parents
themselves.' But whatever the immediate cause the death of these
numerous children lies heavy, not upon the conscience, but upon the
heart of our nation. It is some mitigation to know that the death-rate
among children is normally quite remarkably high in South Africa, and
that the rate in the camps was frequently not higher than that of the
towns near which the camp was situated.

Be this as it may, we cannot deny that the cause of the outbreak of
measles was the collection of the women and children by us into the
camps. But why were they collected into camps? Because they could not be
left on the veldt. And why could they not be left on the veldt? Because
we had destroyed the means of subsistence. And why had we destroyed the
means of subsistence? To limit the operations of the mobile bands of
guerillas. At the end of every tragedy we are forced back to the common
origin of all of them, and made to understand that the nation which
obstinately perseveres in a useless guerilla war prepares much trouble
for its enemy, but absolute ruin for itself.

We have pushed our humanity in this matter of the refugees so far that
we have looked after our enemies far better than our friends. I
recognise that the two cases are not on all fours, since the Boers are
compelled to be in camps and the loyalist refugees are not. But the fact
remains that the loyalists _are_ in camps, through no fault of their
own, and that their condition is a worse one than that of our enemies.
At East London, for example, there are two refugee camps, Boer and
British. The former has 350, the latter 420 inhabitants. The former are
by fa