d it not be the first thing for a man to do to rush out
and bring the guilty man to justice? He ought to risk his life for that.
There was no reason for him to be frightened. We English are not a
barbarous nation.' The husband, however, had taken no steps. We may be
very sure that the case still engages the earnest attention of our
Provost-Marshal, and that the man, if he exists, will sooner or later
form an object-lesson upon discipline and humanity to the nearest
garrison. Such was the Spoelstra trial. Mr. Stead talks fluently of the
charges made, but deliberately omits the essential fact that after a
patient hearing not one of them was substantiated.

I cannot end the chapter better than with the words of the Rev. P. S.
Bosman, head of the Dutch Reformed Church at Pretoria:

'Not a single case of criminal assault or rape by non-commissioned
officers or men of the British Army in Pretoria on Boer women has come
to my knowledge. I asked several gentlemen in turn about this point and
their testimony is the same as mine.'

But Mr. Stead says that it must be so because there are 250,000 men in
Africa. Could the perversion of argument go further? Which are we to
believe, our enemy upon the spot or the journalist in London?

CHAPTER IX

FURTHER CHARGES AGAINST BRITISH TROOPS

_Expansive and Explosive Bullets._

When Mr. Stead indulges in vague rhetoric it is difficult to corner him,
but when he commits himself to a definite statement he is more open to
attack. Thus, in his 'Methods of Barbarism' he roundly asserts that
'England sent several million rounds of expanding bullets to South
Africa, and in the North of the Transvaal and at Mafeking for the first
three months of the war no other bullets were used.' Mr. Methuen, on the
authority of a letter of Lieutenant de Montmorency, R.A., states also
that from October 12, 1899, up to January 15, 1900, the British forces
north of Mafeking used nothing but Mark IV. ammunition, which is not a
dum-dum but is an expansive bullet.

Mr. Methuen's statement differs, as will be seen, very widely from Mr.
Stead's; for Mr. Stead says Mafeking, and Mr. Methuen says north of
Mafeking. There was a very great deal of fighting at Mafeking, and
comparatively little north of Mafeking during that time, so that the
difference is an essential one. To test Mr. Stead's assertion about
Mafeking, I communicated with General Baden-Powell, the gentleman who is
most qualified to speak as t