,' saying, 'That in
view of the many misrepresentations regarding the treatment of the Boer
prisoners in Bermuda, he recently obtained a trustworthy opinion from
one of his correspondents there.'... The correspondent's name is Musson
Wainwright, and Mr. O'Rorke describes him 'as one of the influential
residents in the island.' He says, 'That the Boers in Bermuda are better
off than many residents in New York. They have plenty of beef, plenty of
bread, plenty of everything except liberty. There are good hospitals and
good doctors. It is true that some of the Boers are short of clothing,
but these are very few, and the Government is issuing clothing to them.
On the whole,' says Mr. Wainwright, 'Great Britain is treating the
Boers far better than most people would.'

Compare this record with the undoubted privations, many of them
unnecessary, which our soldiers endured at Waterval near Pretoria, the
callous neglect of the enteric patients there, and the really barbarous
treatment of British Colonial prisoners who were confined in cells on
the absurd plea that in fighting for their flag they were traitors to
the Africander cause.

_Executions._

The number of executions of Boers, as distinguished from the execution
of Cape rebels, has been remarkably few in a war which has already
lasted twenty-six months. So far as I have been able to follow them,
they have been limited to the execution of Cordua for broken parole and
conspiracy upon August 24, 1900, at Pretoria, the shooting of one or two
horse-poisoners in Natal, and the shooting of three men after the action
of October 27, 1900, near Fredericstad. These men, after throwing down
their arms and receiving quarter, picked them up again and fired at the
soldiers from behind. No doubt there have been other cases, scattered up
and down the vast scene of warfare, but I can find no record of them,
and if they exist at all they must be few in number. Since the beginning
of 1901 four men have been shot in the Transvaal, three in Pretoria as
spies and breakers of parole, one in Johannesburg as an aggravated case
of breaking neutrality by inciting Boers to resist.

At the beginning of the war 90 per cent. of the farmers in the northern
district of Cape Colony joined the invaders. Upon the expulsion of the
Boers these men for the most part surrendered. The British Government,
recognising that pressure had been put upon them and that their position
had been a difficult one, infl