ber described as a
'gentlemanly' bullet.

_Conduct to Prisoners on the Field._

On this count, also, the British soldiers have been exposed to attacks,
both at home and abroad, which are as unfounded and as shameful as most
of those which have been already treated.

The first occasion upon which Boer prisoners fell into our hands was at
the Battle of Elandslaagte, on October 21, 1899. That night was spent by
the victorious troops in a pouring rain, round such fires as they were
able to light. It has been recorded by several witnesses that the
warmest corner by the fire was reserved for the Boer prisoners. It has
been asserted, and is again asserted, that when the Lancers charged a
small body of the enemy after the action, they gave no quarter--'too
well substantiated and too familiar,' says one critic of this assertion.
I believe, as a matter of fact, that the myth arose from a sensational
picture in an illustrated paper. The charge was delivered late in the
evening, in uncertain light. Under such circumstances it is always
possible, amid so wild and confused a scene, that a man who would have
surrendered has been cut down or ridden over. But the cavalry brought
back twenty prisoners, and the number whom they killed or wounded has
not been placed higher than that, so that it is certain there was no
indiscriminate slaying. I have read a letter from the officer who
commanded the cavalry and who directed the charge, in which he tells the
whole story confidentially to a brother officer. He speaks of his
prisoners, but there is no reference to any brutality upon the part of
the troopers.

Mr. Stead makes a great deal of some extracts from the letters of
private soldiers at the front who talk of bayonetting their enemies.
Such expressions should be accepted with considerable caution, for it
may amuse the soldier to depict himself as rather a terrible fellow to
his home-staying friends. Even if isolated instances could be
corroborated, it would merely show that men of fiery temperament in the
flush of battle are occasionally not to be restrained, either by the
power of discipline or by the example and exhortations of their
officers. Such instances, I do not doubt, could be found among all
troops in all wars. But to found upon it a general charge of brutality
or cruelty is unjust in the case of a foreigner, and unnatural in the
case of our own people.

There is one final and complete answer to all such charges. It is th