Times_ would drop from the clouds,
and for weeks the news it contained would be administered in homeopathic
doses to the public at three pence per dose. It was good business.
"Slip" was the appropriate appellation bestowed upon the Special.
Sometimes two or three "Slips" would be issued on the same day. One
would come out early, after which a huge blackboard, intimating in
chalked capitals that "important news" was to appear in a later edition,
would be carried round the town by two black boys. And though the news
was never important, the enterprise was a success. To the smart sets the
limited reading matter the "half sheet of notepaper" contained was a
positive recommendation; and at afternoon (Natal) teas there was many a
"Slip" between the cup and the lip.

Time passed; and still the Column came not. We felt disgusted rather
than distressed; we were yet confident of the Column's invincibility.
Various tit-bits of secondary interest were served out to humour us, and
a startling rumour was put in circulation--a rumour round which clung no
element of justification to soften the wrath it aroused.

A meeting composed of the Military authorities and a few leading
civilians had been held some days before, and the subject of its
deliberations had at length come to light. It was proposed and debated
at this meeting that--when railway communication had been restored--all
women, children, and non-combatants should be sent away to the coast!
This would mean some twenty-seven thousand whites, together with
natives, coolies, etc.--about forty thousand people. The idea behind all
this was to make Kimberley a garrison town, to stock it well with
provisions, and afterwards to allow the Boers--if they were so
disposed--to re-mutilate the line to their hearts' content. The
"Military Situation" would not admit of the employment of a host of men
to guard it.

The scheme was immediately howled down. The ladies, it need hardly be
said, were well in the van of opposition. They foregathered in the
streets, and with arms fixed resolutely akimbo denounced the
contemplated outrage as a monstrous tyranny--enough to make them "turn
Boer," indeed, as one lady luridly put it. Whither would they go? Would
the "Military Situation" answer whither? There were women of mature
years who, given a choice between hanging and a whirl day and night
through the Karoo, would almost favour the suspension of the
constitution! But apart from physical inconveni