s
around the town; and food-supplies and such field equipment as could
be got together had been provided for the men. As regards the town,
the Government police having disappeared, it was necessary to take
energetic steps to prevent actual chaos reigning. Ex-Chief Detective
Trimble was appointed to organize a police force, and the work was
admirably done. Before nightfall the Reform Committee's police had
taken entire charge of the town, and from this time until the
withdrawal of the Committee's police after the laying down of arms,
perfect order was maintained--indeed, the town has never before or
since been so efficiently controlled as during this period.

Numbers of the mines stopped work. In some cases the miners remained
to protect the companies' property; in other cases the men came in
and volunteered to carry arms in defence of the town. One of the most
serious difficulties with which the Committee had to deal was that of
supplying arms. There were under 3,000 rifles, and during the few
days when the excitement was at its highest no less than 20,000 men
came forward as volunteers and demanded to be armed. Not unnaturally
a great deal of feeling was roused among these men against the
Committee on account of their inability to arm them. It was believed
for a long time that the Committee was wholly responsible for the
incursion by Dr. Jameson; that they had precipitated matters without
regard to the safety of the unarmed population, and had actually
courted civil war with a paltry equipment of some 3,000 rifles. For
several days a huge crowd surrounded the Committee's offices
clamouring for guns. It is difficult to say what the feeling would
have been and what would have been done had it been known then that
there were less than 3,000 rifles. Not more than a dozen men knew the
actual number, and they decided to take the responsibility of
withholding this information, for they realized that panic and riot
might ensue if it were known, whilst the only hope for a successful
issue now lay in Johannesburg presenting a bold, confident, and
united front.

All the well-known medical men in the town came forward at once, and
organized and equipped an ambulance corps which within the day was in
perfect working order.

Perhaps the most arduous task of all was that of the Commissariat
Department, who were called upon to supply at a few hours' notice the
men bearing arms in various positions outside the town and the
various