or a small portion of it. Said
he: "The burghers' distress has been caused by the war (Jameson's raid),
and the subsequent unrest has not tended to improve matters. The
burghers have suffered from these circumstances. The country has been
compelled to spend a lot of money on the building of forts, nearly
2,000,000 pounds, by which our means have been exhausted. In the
Zoutpansberg district especially, the condition of things I know to be
most distressing. White families as well as black are dying rapidly.
Still I expect you to turn to the Bible in a time of adversity like
this. Follow the prophet Isaiah's advice, and look to the Lord God who
has so far befriended you. Why will men not follow in the path of the
Lord instead of losing money at races and by gambling?" etc., etc.

TWO MILLIONS ON FORTS WHILE PEOPLE STARVE.

One knows not which most to pity, the blundering muddle-headed
President, or the wretched feeble-minded people who listen to him. Even
little English school-boys would have had the courage and sense to tell
the President how unfit to govern anything but a small pastorate on the
veld he had proved himself after such a speech, and have pointed out to
him that the two million pounds spent on unnecessary forts, had been the
means of starving the Zoutpansberg frontier, and that it was blasphemy
to make the Lord responsible for his own foolish and stupid
extravagance, besides adding insult to injury to accuse people with love
of horse-racing and gambling when they were starving through his
criminal folly.

The burghers, however, lacking the intelligence of English school-boys,
adjourn after the speech to banquet their venerable chief and to glorify
him.

At Heidelberg the President was asked if the Secret Service Fund was
divided into two sections. "Yes," he replied, "for I have to keep my
eyes wide open, and I have private detectives all over the country to
prevent any surprise like that of the Jameson raid occurring again."

What an extraordinary man, to devote 80,000 pounds a year fighting an
enemy that does not exist, when, according to his own words, his
burghers are dying of starvation at Zoutpansberg!

THAT CORNER-STONE.

When questioned as to his objections to the Industrial Report, the
President said that "if it had been accepted the independence of the
Republic would have been lost." Provided certain obstacles were
removed, he was in favour of taking over the railway. The profits o