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THE FRIEND.(Edited by the War Correspondents with Lord Roberts' Force.)
BLOEMFONTEIN, SATURDAY, APRIL 14, 1900.
The following communication has been addressed to President Kruger:—
From Field Marshal Lord Roberts, Commanding in Chief in South Africa, to His Honour the President, S.A. Republic, Pretoria,
April 12, 1900.
It has been reported to me that the Non-Commissioned Officers and men of Her Majesty's Colonial Forces, who have been made prisoners of war, are treated as criminals and confined in Pretoria jail, where they are very badly fed. It has also been brought to my notice that at the beginning of March there were ninety cases of enteric feverand dysentery among the Non-Commissioned Officers and men in the camp at Waterval, and that, as Dr. Haylett, the Medical Officer in charge, failed to obtain from your Government the medicines and medical comforts which he required for the sick, he resigned, Dr. von Greldt being appointed in his place.
It is stated that the prisoners at Waterval have to bivouac on the open veldt without overhead shelter and with only a layer of straw to lie on, while the sick are placed under an open shed with iron roof. I am informed that it was only upon Dr. von Greldt threatening to resign that medicines and mattresses were supplied for the sick. I can hardly believe that your Honour is aware or approves of the harsh treatment of the prisoners belonging to the Colonial Forces, or of the want of consideration shown to the prisoners at Waterval. The former are Her Majesty's subjects, are duly enlisted, are subject to military discipline, and wear uniform. According to the recognised customs of war, they are entitled to be treated in the same way as any other soldiers of Her Britannic Majesty, and I must remind your Honour that all prisoners captured by the troops under my command are equally well treated, whether they are burghers or foreigners. The utmost care has been taken of your sick and wounded, and no distinction has been made in the field hospitals between them and our own soldiers.
The Front Page of "The Friend" of April 4, 1900.
The Front Page of "The Friend" of April 4, 1900.
I invite your Honour's early attention to this matter, and I request that orders may be given for the Non-Commissioned Officers and men of the Colonial Forces to be released from jail and to be treated, not as criminals, but as prisoners of war.
I also request that the prisoners at Waterval may be provided with overhead shelter, and that the sick and wounded may be properly entertained and taken care of in accordance with Article Six of the Geneva Convention.
When I was quite a young recruit, not very long ago,My comrades' conversation was a talk I didn't know;I really thought to some far-distant country I'd been shippedWhen they said I was a "jowler," and described me as "just nipped."If I was "slightly dragged," or with my "praco" couldn't cope,They said I'd "lost my monnicker" and earned an "extra slope,"And, though I'm known as Ferdinand to all my kin and kith,They went and dropped my Christian name and called me "Dusty Smith."They called me "Dusty Smith."But a soldier's life is the life for me,And the foe shall ne'er alarm me,For you won't feel queer on "Drug-hole beer,"What's called "three-thick" in the Army.I asked them what my food would be. They said: "Your food? Oh, that's'Meat,' 'jipper,' 'spuds' and 'rooti,' with occasional 'top-hats.'"They said I'd find coal-hugging quite a lively little job,Then they put me "on the timber" and they called me "Junior Swab."But when my work was over, after "tapping up" a bit,I'd take my own "square missus" out—you bet we made a hit.And when I had to go on guard she'd come there every dayTo see me marching down the street and hear the "fiddlers" play.Just to hear the "fiddlers" play.So a soldier's life is the life for me,And the foe shall ne'er alarm me,As I slope my gun in Number OneWhat's called "Long-Swabs" in the Army.But now I understand them 'cause I know my way about,And comprehend the Sergeant's unintelligible shout;When he says: "Shooldare Hipe!" I know that he means: "Shoulder hup"So I'm never for "Small-dodgers" and I never got "Built-up."I'm not a mere "Jam-soldier," I've extended sure enough,And been made "Assistant-bully" so I help to cook the "Duff."I keep my kit and rifle clean, so's never to be rushed,And I've never been "done-tired" and I've never once been "pushed."No, I've never once been "pushed."Then a soldier's life is the life for me,And the foe shall ne'er alarm me,And soon I shall be Corporal,What's called "Sauce-Jack" in the Army.
When I was quite a young recruit, not very long ago,My comrades' conversation was a talk I didn't know;I really thought to some far-distant country I'd been shippedWhen they said I was a "jowler," and described me as "just nipped."If I was "slightly dragged," or with my "praco" couldn't cope,They said I'd "lost my monnicker" and earned an "extra slope,"And, though I'm known as Ferdinand to all my kin and kith,They went and dropped my Christian name and called me "Dusty Smith."They called me "Dusty Smith."
But a soldier's life is the life for me,And the foe shall ne'er alarm me,For you won't feel queer on "Drug-hole beer,"What's called "three-thick" in the Army.
I asked them what my food would be. They said: "Your food? Oh, that's'Meat,' 'jipper,' 'spuds' and 'rooti,' with occasional 'top-hats.'"They said I'd find coal-hugging quite a lively little job,Then they put me "on the timber" and they called me "Junior Swab."But when my work was over, after "tapping up" a bit,I'd take my own "square missus" out—you bet we made a hit.And when I had to go on guard she'd come there every dayTo see me marching down the street and hear the "fiddlers" play.Just to hear the "fiddlers" play.
So a soldier's life is the life for me,And the foe shall ne'er alarm me,As I slope my gun in Number OneWhat's called "Long-Swabs" in the Army.
But now I understand them 'cause I know my way about,And comprehend the Sergeant's unintelligible shout;When he says: "Shooldare Hipe!" I know that he means: "Shoulder hup"So I'm never for "Small-dodgers" and I never got "Built-up."I'm not a mere "Jam-soldier," I've extended sure enough,And been made "Assistant-bully" so I help to cook the "Duff."I keep my kit and rifle clean, so's never to be rushed,And I've never been "done-tired" and I've never once been "pushed."No, I've never once been "pushed."
Then a soldier's life is the life for me,And the foe shall ne'er alarm me,And soon I shall be Corporal,What's called "Sauce-Jack" in the Army.
"The horse is the natural enemy of Man: the horse is the only animal that will dash himself over a precipice to avoid the shadow of his own feed-bag."—Kipling.
"All civilians must remain in their houses after eight o'clock at night."—Hints on Housekeeping(by Lord Roberts).
"Your Mounted Infantry—it is as much as they can do to keep their hats on."—Albrecht, captured Boer Artillerist.
"I call the Cavalry the Oh, Lor! regiments. They ride up to a kopje and stare about till they are fired at, when they say, "Oh, Lor," and gallop off."—Albrecht.
"I'd rather be a coward all my life than a corpse half a minute."—Solomon(junior).
Sketch.
The accompanying wood-cut is a portrait of the well-known author, Dr. A. Conan Doyle. The author of "Sherlock Holmes," who is so generously giving his time and whole-hearted attention to the sick and wounded, will, by the use of the "Holmesian method," be able to tell, without a moment's hesitation, at what period of his eventful life the photograph was taken, of which the accompanying block is a representation.
My dear Father,—Since I last wrote to you we have been having a quiet time down South "pacifying the country." This consists in collecting arms—which we keep—and inviting the burghers to take oaths—which they don't keep—at least some of them don't. Every one seemed pleased to see us and very ready to tell all about their neighbours' misdoings. If one believes only half of what one was told, the smiling little village where we were quartered must be only one station this side of a very warm place.
A spice of danger is added to police work if there are other detachments in the neighbourhood. It is this wise. Two of our captains who were out afterspringbok one day were suddenly glued to the ground by the well-known whistle of bullets over their heads. Leaving their respective hills after dark, they returned and, with quivering lips, recounted to us the dangers through which they had passed. An eviction party was organised and a thorough search made for hidden rifles on the farm where the incident had occurred.
Not unnaturally, none were found, as we heard on our return that Stoke had been out with six Non-Commissioned Officers and had walked the country in line shooting at everything that moved.
You remember Stoke, don't you? He was the fellow who was not going to bring a knife and fork out with him as everybody on service would of course eat with his fingers.
Do you remember that rather pretty song that MacRavish in the A.S.C. used to sing? "Lay down thy lute, my dearest." The Provost-Marshal has now adopted it for his own, and I have had to give up all the loot I had collected in the last three months. It is very disappointing, but I suppose he will give it back when his staff have taken what they want.
We have been having a bad time the last few days, as there are detachments of troops constantly passing to the front, and unless one lies quite quiet they shoot at one. Their scouts, too, bang through the middle of the kitchens and camp "looking for the enemy," which is rather annoying for us, but it does not do to interfere.
All the rifles are supposed to have been given up in the neighbourhood, so I was hurt in two senses—when I sat down on a very hard sofa in a farm close by and found that the cushion was stuffed with two Mausers and a lot of ammunition. The farmer professedto be as surprised as I was, but I don't see why he should have objected to my taking them away. He said they must have been left there accidentally by Potgieter or Pienaar. As you cannot throw a stone without hitting some one of those two names his statement was rather indefinite, besides being untruthful. It is awfully good of you sending me out all those woollen comforters and meat tabloids, but next time you are sending I wish you could send me enough stuff to put a new seat and knees to my breeches, as they are both deficient at present and even on active service they scarcely come under the head of "luxuries."—Your affectionate son, "Bertie."
It is all right to claim as much as you think you can get and to get all you really can, but in case of argument it may be just as well to have this little list stuck inside your helmet. You may know some way of getting more than this—striking the A.S.C. when it is badly rushed, or very sleepy—but if you reach the issue depôt when it is too wide-awake for you, here is the list, just to make sure you'll not take less than regulations give you.
One man, one day:—Biscuits, 1 lb.; fresh bread, 1-1/2 lb.; preserved meat, 1 lb.; fresh meat, 1-1/4 lb.; coffee, 2/3 oz., or tea 1/3 oz., or 1/2 oz. of each; pepper, 1/36 oz.; salt, 1/2 oz.; sugar, 3 ozs. (including sugar for lime-juice); compressed vegetables, 1 oz.; fresh vegetables, 8 oz. (when available); rice, 2 oz. (in lieu of vegetables); cheese, 2 oz. (in lieu of 4 oz. of meat); jam, 1/4 lb. (three times a week); rum, 1/64 of gallon—whenordered; lime juice, 1/320 of a gallon, if certified to be necessary by the medical officer; candles, 1 per officer; office authorised canteen.
Meal or flour for natives 1 lb. a day, which may be increased to 1-1/4 lb. when supplies are plentiful; natives receive the same ration as soldiers with the exception of vegetables. Meal or flour is usually substituted for bread.
Indians enjoy a special scale of rations.
Forage:—English horses: oats, 9 lbs.; oat-hay, 7 lbs.; bran, 3 lbs.; chaff, 2 lbs.
Colonial horses: Mealies, 8 lbs.; oat-hay, 4 lbs.; bran, 2 lbs.; chaff, 2 lbs.
Mules: Mealies, 5 lbs.; bran or chaff, 2 lbs.
To officers.—If you countersign a claim for any more than this you had better be sure it is in the hands of a very "trustworthy" man, who can bluff it through, and get the A.S.C. men mixed up. If he doesn't know his way about they'll catch him up and send him back.
[A young Philadelphian who very cleverly united in his own work and person the entire reportorial staff of the paper.]
This town is hungry. The shops are practically bare. Nothing worth speaking of comes to market. The matter has passed from the stage at which it might be regarded as a joke. Bloemfontein really hungers for necessary articles of diet, and it has one week in which to raise an extra appetite before thefirst train of foodstuffs comes to its stores. The hopes of two trucks a day for Bloemfontein merchants, held out two weeks ago by the Imperial Military Railway Officials, have proved vain. The two trucks never came. The line has been taken up wholly by the transportation of troops and army supplies. Next Thursday, however, unless the present plan is changed, a train of 20 trucks will leave Port Elizabeth with goods for merchants here. There will be one train a week thereafter. All day on Wednesday and Thursday the business men flocked to the Director of Supplies, who will assign to each his proportion of tonnage.
For a week the best families of Bloemfontein have been without butter or sugar. The hospitals have commandeered nearly all the fresh milk. There is not a can of condensed milk to be bought in town, nor a can of jam, nor of cocoa, nor a pound of coffee. The last candles sold in town were sent in from a country store. They disappeared in a day. The town depends for its potatoes on the few which come into town every morning.
The daily supply of fresh vegetables is so small as to be hardly worth mentioning.
Toilet soaps and English laundry soap disappeared long ago. You cannot buy a razor or a shaving-brush or a tooth-brush.
More than one druggist lacks material for putting up prescriptions: glycerine, cascara, bromide of potassium, boracic acid, carbolic disinfectants, ginger, zinc oxide, blue ointment, acetate of lead, and iodoform. Absence of some of these from the prescription shelves might result seriously.
Eno's Salts and chlorodyne cannot be bought intown. Beecham's Pills were "all out" four months ago.
The flour mills have been closed for several days for want of water. They will resume, feeding their boilers with well water, but the end of the wheat supply is in sight. There is still mealie meal, but bakers declare that it won't make bread.
Cigars that are worth smoking and whisky worth drinking haven't been seen for a week. Hospitals take all the soda-water that the factory can make.
Shoemakers have not even veldschoens in ordinary sizes. They have had no leather for two weeks, so shoe repairing is out of the question.
Winter is coming on, the mornings are already growing chilly, but clothiers have no hose and no heavy underwear of white man's quality. All hats suitable for army wear were sold long ago.
Merchants declare that if they had not been promised two trucks a day by rail they would have brought supplies from Kimberley by ox-waggon. It would have taken six days, but would have been worth while.
We retire from the paper, leaving it in able and patriotic hands.
The unique and delightful episode had ended. On April 16th, just one month after we established this new departure in war, we turnedThe Friendover to the proprietor of theJohannesburg Star, upon an arrangement quickly and generously made by Lord Stanley. Within a week I was ordered home by the surgeons who saw the state my battered body was in. Mr. Landon preceded me by a few days, invalided also. Mr. Buxton remained upon the paper under its new proprietors, who were old workmates with him, and Mr. Gwynne remained, and yet remains as a war correspondent (January, 1901), sturdily doing his always excellent work in the field. In that work I think he has few superiors among living English-speaking correspondents, and I know that many military and journalistic experts agree with me. The pity is that the nature of his work for Reuter's has kept his genius as a writer practically hidden from the public.
Mr. Shelley took up the photographer's side of the entertaining duel between the men of his calling and the actual and proper artists; Mr. Melton Prior indignantly lamented an indignity or an attempted theft of which he had been the victim. We reported a great football match between the officers of the Gordons and those of the First Contingent of theRoyal Canadian Regiment; and, finally, we perpetrated the fourth hoax, in what we called "Our Portrait Gallery." The "portrait" was in each case from the same advertisement block which Mr. Gwynne and I had found on the floor of theExpresscomposing-room, which he had thought nearly enough like Mr. Burdett-Coutts to bear production as a likeness, and which we presently resolved to publish every day as a picture of a different man each time.
The notice of a concert in aid of the Widows' and Orphans' Fund refers to a notable enterprise engineered by the universally distinguished Mr. Bennet Burleigh of theDaily Telegraph, aided by Mr. Maxwell, the very talented correspondent of theStandard, and others. They carried it out with such skill that the entertainment proved the greatest social event, if we may so term it, of the army's sojourn in the capital. Every one of note who was able to be there attended it, and the receipts at the doors and in the competition over the works of Messrs. Prior and Wollen, were very considerable.
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THE FRIEND.(Edited by the War Correspondents with Lord Roberts' Force.)
BLOEMFONTEIN, EASTER MONDAY, APRIL 16, 1900.
At some time all friends must part, and the time and parting have come toThe Friend, its friendsof the public and those war correspondents who have been conducting this journal just one month to-day.
To-morrow this paper will be turned over from the charge of those who were only writers to the hands of men who are practised and able in the management of all departments of a daily journal.
In bidding farewell to our trust, we can boast of nothing unless it be that we have entertained the troops and the town, and made no enemies of whom we know. The rest of what we have done has only been trying—though we have tried hard.
We have said before in this column that it has been an unique experiment—to make one loyal newspaper out of two that were none too English, to make it with talent unused to the work, to make it, often, without news and to conduct it so as to produce something palatable to both the conquerors and the conquered.
We take this occasion to thank the Field Marshal, Lord Roberts, for the trust he reposed in us, and to express the hope that we did not disappoint him.
We also wish to thank those who have assisted us, both among our fellow correspondents and the talented men of the army. Poets we find the latter to be, for the most part. We hope all these will continue to give the helpful right hand to the enterprise under its new managers.
And so we say "adieu" toThe Friend, and good luck to its new conductors.
Sketch.
We feel that we owe an apology to our readers for presenting the portrait of one of our first fighting generals in civilian costume, but our artist left his colours at home and refused to paint at all unless with plain black. The artist in question is Captain Cecil Lowther, of the Scots Guards, and this is his first effort in art. For General Pole-Carew, the subject of this masterpiece, what is there to say except that his promotion has gratified the entire army and evoked the heartiest congratulations fromThe Friend?
Editors,The Friend,—Sirs,—Can you inform me whether there has been a sudden exodus from Bloemfontein of war correspondents armed with cameras? There ought to have been, and yet I have inquired in vain whether such an event has taken place. For, look you, the judgment has gone forth from the pen of Mr. Wollen that the "war artist"—meaning the man with a pencil as opposed to the men with a camera—"will come out on top." Truly, this is most disheartening. No one likes to be thrust to a bottom position, and if that is to bethe fate of the man with a camera, why should he any longer endure the hardships of campaigning and the sorrows of separation from the comforts and companionships of home?
But the war correspondent with a camera has not gone home. He has no intention of doing so. He is unrepentant enough to believe that he, and not the man with a pencil, is going to "come out on top."
Let us have the point at issue clearly defined. War correspondents are with the army to report the war—some by word pictures, others by camera or pencil pictures. Sight-seeing is a passion with humanity. Every inhabitant of the British Isles would like to have a personal vision of the conflict in South Africa, but—save for two or three irresponsible persons whose presence at the front no one can understand—those inhabitants are compelled to rely upon the eyes of others. Now, leaving aside the correspondents who devote themselves to word pictures solely, the question to be decided is—does the man with the camera surpass the man with the pencil in depicting the actuality of warfare?
An astounding claim is made on behalf of the man with the pencil. He can, we are told by Mr. Wollen, show the public "an accurate bird's-eye view of what a battle is like." And he does it by "a few lines to indicate the background and characteristics of it." The same authority assures us that "the brain of the camera cannot take in all that is going on. The man with the pencil does so." Such is the case for the man with the pencil. Now for the test of cross-examination.
Modder River and Maghersfontein may be cited as two representative battles of the war, and so maybe honestly used as touchstones to try the claim Mr. Wollen makes on behalf of the man with a pencil. In each case there was a battle-line of some five or six miles, in each case the enemy was invisible, in each case it was physically impossible for any one man to see more than a small portion of the battle. A spectator on the right flank at Modder River could have no personal knowledge of incidents which were happening in the centre of the bridge, or down the river on the left flank. Even of his own particular section on the right flank that spectator could not attain to a perfect knowledge. But the man with a pencil is untrammelled by such minor matters as time and space; he "takes in all that is going on." Or, if he does not take it all in, he puts it in his sketch. The result is no more "an accurate bird's-eye view of what a battle is like" than a photograph of Oom Paul is like a photograph of Mr. Chamberlain. In short, the facility with which the pencil-man can jot down what he did not see is his ruin.
It will be obvious that the man with the pencil, not being ubiquitous,cannot"take in" all that happens on a battlefield; he sees just as much as, and no more than, the man with the camera; for the rest—which forms so large a proportion of his sketch—he has to rely upon the testimony of others. Now, when the public have in their hands a result attained by this method, what is its value as an "accurate bird's-eye view of what a battle is like?" Absolutelynil. People at home want to see a battle as they would have seen it if they had been present, and no sane man will contest the assertion that the best medium for giving them that vision is the camera rather thanthe pencil. Try as he may after the actual, the man with the pencil thrusts his personality between the event he sees and the people at home for whom he wishes to reproduce it, and consequently his sketch becomes a miserable failure when considered as an "accurate bird's-eye view of what a battle is like."
On the other hand, what does the man with the camera do? He and his lens see at least so much of a given battle as any man with a pencil, and what they see they see with unfailing accuracy. Take that battery in action which Mr. Wollen choses to cite as a subject wherein the powerlessness of the camera is supposed to be illustrated. The camera man does not fear the test. He can show the guns coming into action, record their unlimbering, depict the preparation for firing, and time a photograph at the actual moment of firing. It is true that his picture will not show quite such a volume of smoke as the sketch of the man with the pencil. But why?Because the smoke is not there.The man with the pencil puts it in because other men with pencils have been putting it in for generations. Perhaps, too, the public would not mistake the sketch for a battle-scene if the smoke were absent. Anyhow, what becomes of the boast ofaccuracy? Moreover, the man with a camera will not present his public with a twelve-pounder firing from the carriage of a howitzer.
There is something more to be said for the man with a camera. Now-a-days he is in the habit of screwing a telephoto lens to the front of the camera, and with that lens he can immensely outdistance the vision of even that all-seeing man with the pencil. Objects a couple of miles off are brought near, andgroups of men can be photographed at such distances as prevent them assuming any posing attitudes. In this way actuality takes on the added charm of natural grouping, and I shall be greatly surprised if some of the telephoto pictures of this war do not take rank as the most artistic as well as realistic records of its incidents.
After all, the man with a camera may safely leave his case in the hands of others. Take a negative and a positive witness on the question in the abstract. Mr. Julian Ralph writes that "the pictures of our battles which are coming back to us in the London weeklies are not at all like the real things," and then he adds: "I saw the other day a picture in one of the leading papers by one of the best illustrators. It showed the British storming a Boer position. In the middle ground was a Boer battery, and the only gunner left alive was standing up with a bandage round his head, while smoke and flame and flying fragments of shells filled the air in his vicinity. In the rush of the instant he must have been bandaged by the same shot that struck him, and as for smoke anddébrisin the air, there was more of this in a corner of that picture than I have seen in all the four battles we have fought."
Now for the positive witness. He is no less a person than the art critic of thePall Mall Gazette, who can no more be charged with a predilection for photography than Messrs. Steyn and Kruger can be saddled with a predilection for truthfulness. This critic dwells, as Mr. Scott did in the letter which opened this discussion, upon the old and new methods of war illustration, and then candidly adds: "I would like to say that the artists scoreoff the photographer,but they do not. The public wants the facts as near as may be, and are too deeply stirred to be put off with melodrama."
One other witness may be called to give Mr. Wollen an idea of how the work of the man with the pencil is faring at home. Here is a recent private letter from England, which makes merry in the following fashion over those sketches which are so inclusive and accurate: "There is a picture of two gunners standing to attention after having exhausted their ammunition. The man nearest the gun is looking straight in front of him, with a bandage round his head, a bullet-wound in his face (close to the left ear), two in the right side of his chest, and one in his right leg, some distance above the knee. Within a yard of him is a bursting shell. But that man ignores such trivial things. Still he stands. I suppose the weight of so much lead in him keeps him up. One wonders whether he is hollow inside, so that the bullets all drop down into his feet."
No wonder, worthy editorial sirs, you have not witnessed an exodus of men with cameras from Bloemfontein; they are staying to "come out on top." Sincerely yours,
H. C. Shelley.
To the Editors ofThe Friend,—Sirs,—Practical jokes are out of date, and the perpetrators have universally come to be regarded as a mixture of fools and knaves. It is intolerable to attempt a practical joke upon a friend, but to play one upon a stranger is downright rascality. To accept an excuse for such a thing is to admit the pleas of theman who took a piece of old rope that he did not mean to take the horse that was at the other end; or that of other fellows who sneak property, pick pockets, or forge cheques, that these acts were all done in fun.
I have been much interested in reading inThe Friendabout horses, saddles, bridles, and even riems being stolen in this campaign, but I think I can add to the list with a more startling experience of my own. I bought a waggon from a well-known man in this town and had it sent to a coach repairer to be overhauled. It was a conspicuous vehicle, as much so as a Soudan pantechnicon van, with white wall sides, upon which were painted, in letters that could be read half a mile away, the owner's name, business, and address. This waggon was impudently taken in the night-time, dragged to stables some distance away, and there left. From the police I have learned that paint had actually been purchased, and it was evidently the intention of the thieves to transform my waggon, by painting out the name and address, and so daub it with khaki or some other colour that it should become unrecognisable. By a fortuitous accident the waggon was discovered in the nick of time.
The law here is such that an aggrieved party must become a prosecutor, which is an undertaking a transient visitor naturally shirks.
I think it my duty to call attention to the circumstances and the inadequacy of the existing means for the prevention of wrong-doing and the punishment of the wrong-doers.—I am, sirs, yours truly,
Melton Prior,War Artist,Illustrated London News.
Thanks to the kindness of the Military Governor, Major-General Pretyman, the concert in aid of the "Widows' and Orphans' Funds," London and Bloemfontein, will be held next Wednesday evening, instead of during the afternoon. Major-General Pretyman has conceded that upon the date in question, Wednesday, 18th inst., the pass regulation will not come into force until midnight. That means that citizens may move about after 8 p.m., or until twelve o'clock, without requiring any special pass or being called upon to produce a permit.
The committee of war correspondents declare that the entertainment will require no booming. It is to be a red-letter day in the calendar of concerts given for charitable purposes in Bloemfontein, both in respect to talent upon the platform and to the celebrities who will crowd the Town Hall that evening.
Amongst those who will appear will be Miss Fraser, the Free State nightingale, who will sing original verses written by Mr. Rudyard Kipling for the occasion; Miss Leviseur, Miss Jessie Fraser, Lieut.-Colonel Townshend, C.B., Surgeon-Major Beevor, Scots Guards, Lieut. James Forrest, Captain Nugent, the celebrated vocalist; Captain Wright, R.N. (The Skipper); the Lightning Cartoonists,aliasThe Gemini; Mr. Preshaw, Major Jones, R.E., besides, in the language of theentrepreneurs, "a coruscation and galaxy of stars of the first magnitude too numerous to mention in the brief space afforded." It is hoped that the military band will be present, but, at any rate, that the concert willbe high-class without being dull is guaranteed from the fact that Messrs. Ivan Haarburgher and King are in charge of the musical arrangements.
Tickets may be had and seats booked at Messrs. Borckenhagen and Co. Prices: 5s., reserved seats; gallery, 2s. 6d.; soldiers in uniform to gallery, 1s.
We made a money profit as well as a good newspaper—but the entire experience thus quickly passed into history.
Thus ends the history of this new departure in war and in journalism. Of it Mr. Kipling wrote afterwards, "Never again will there be such a paper! Never again such a staff! Never such fine larks." It has been impossible, after all my good intentions, to tell of scores of the peculiarities of the paper, and its editors' experiences. Sometimes copies ofThe Frienddid not look twice alike for days at a time, as we strove to make it more and more workmanlike, and more and more original and attractive.
We began, as I have said, with advertisement "ear-tabs" on either side of the heading. Then we put the Royal coat-of-arms in their places. Next we put the arms in the middle of the title space and published mottoes and notices in new "ear-tabs." At first we put double leads only between the lines of the leading article each day, but presently we dignified the cable news and Mr. Kipling's contributions in that way. We once put some editorial notices in rhyme, and setthem up in black job type—when we changed the price of the paper to one penny for everybody.
We knew that our money returns were in confusion, but because we had taken over a business manager from one of the two commandeered newspapers, whom we could hardly expect to be in sympathy with us, and because we had established two prices for the paper and were being victimised by some of our customers, we could not see how the finance of our venture was likely to come out.
A practised man of affairs, from the City Imperial Volunteer Mounted Force, Mr. Siegfried Blumfeld, most kindly took the trouble to look into our accounts, and we learned from his report that we were making money, but not nearly enough to satisfy our pride and hopes. However, as events proved, we gained a splendid profit, and were able to make Tommy Atkins's newspaper pay a handsome sum toward "Tommy's" relief. All that any of us have even thus far learned of the profits is to be found in the following formal letter I received from Lord Stanley:—
ARMY HEADQUARTERS, PRETORIA,
3rd October, 1900.
Sir,—I have been asked by Major-General Pretyman, C.B., to forward you a copy of a letter which he has received bearing reference to the use made of the profits ofThe Friendnewspaper.
General Pretyman adds that there will be a further cheque, which he proposes to send to some other charity, but which he does not specify to me.
Yours sincerely,
Stanley.
Julian Ralph, Esq.,
(Enclosure.)
Stellenberg, Kenilworth, Cape Colony,20/8/00.
Sir,—As Honorary Treasurer of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association, I enclose a formal acknowledgment of the cheques for £136 17s. 3d. so kindly sent to our Association by the War Correspondents. Should you have an opportunity of doing so, I should be very glad if you would convey to Lord Stanley and the other gentlemen our great appreciation of this kind and thoughtful gift.
Yours very truly,
(Signed)W. L. Sclater.
Had we been able to "inspan" a proof-reader with a Lee-Metford rifle and a determination to use it to enforce his "corrections," we should not have announced the Queen's reception in Dublin as a great tribute by London, neither should we have made Mr. Kipling speak of a "shixlvl" when he wrote a "shovelful." Four of us had to fill a great chasm nine columns long and wide every day, and to do proof-reading as well. We produced the nine columns incidentally as a thing done with our left hands, the while that our minds and souls and master-hands were devoted to correcting proofs. Bravely as we battled with them, they kept coming like a swift tide, until, in a reckless way of putting it, they were heaped on our table as high as the top button on each of our coats. When it came to time to go to press we regularly and daily observed that we had not only overlooked errors enough to wreck our reputations, but that the compositors had failed to correct many of those which we had marked.Gravely, in a body, we used to march to the printing-office and threaten to send the guiltiest culprits as prisoners to Simonstown, charged with being hostile to the blessings of enlightened government. Then we would go to lunch and the paper would come out—so full of mistakes that there was clearly nothing to do but to allow the humour of the situation to have its way, and to laugh until we almost cried at the extravagance of the offences we were committing against journalism and "the art preservative of arts."
Despite its whimsicalities,The Friendwas a dignified newspaper, and very nearly a complete one. The largest daily circulation of any Bloemfontein newspaper had been 400 copies, but we regularly sold from 5,000 to 5,500 copies. We published Reuter's telegrams from all over the world (semi-occasionally when military messages did not block the wires), and theCapetown Argus'stidings of what went on in South Africa.
As I have written elsewhere, "its unique origin and purpose, and its eccentricities, combined to make it the basis of a collecting mania." Copies with a mistake in a date line, corrected after one hundred papers had been struck off, brought five shillings on the date of issue, and ten shillings two days later, and the price had risen to a guinea by the time the newspaper was turned over to the managers of theJohannesburg StarandCapetown Argus. This took place when it was apparent to all of us that two or three of us were not in the physical trim to serveThe Friendand our distant employers without causing one or the other to suffer great neglect.
The competition for complete sets of the newspaperran the price up to £10, and this strife ran neck and neck with the rivalry to obtain sets of Free State postage stamps made British by the letters V.R.I. on an overline of printing. One of these stamps was quoted at £10 while the army lingered in Bloemfontein, but I have my own reason for thinking thatThe Friendwill receive a higher valuation than any "pink sixpenny stamp" or any set of stamps, for it fell to the lot of that journal to emphasise the present power and usefulness of the press as no other journal has ever done.
A single copy of this newspaper is reported to have fetched £25 at a London charity bazaar.
Since the return to England of three of the editors we have decided to perpetuate the little organisation in a fraternal "Order of Friendlies," and Rudyard Kipling has designed a badge which Messrs. Tiffany & Co., jewellers, of Regent Street, have most ably and artistically executed in gold and enamel. Facsimiles of it adorn the cover of this book. It is of the size of a two-guinea coin. On its obverse side are the colours of the old Free State and Transvaal, upon which is imposed the red cross of Saint George. In the ends of the cross are the initials of the four editors in Greek capitals. Lord Roberts's badge has his initials in the centre of the cross in green under a golden coronet, and where the ring is, on top of our badges, his has a green enamel shamrock leaf. On the reverse side are four pens crossed and surrounded by a motto, "Inter Prælia Prelum," "In the Midst of War the Printing Press," here couched in monkish Latin. Lord Roberts's badge has a drawnsword of gold on top of the crossed pens. Only seven men in all the world belong to this order: Lord Roberts, Lord Stanley, Messrs. Gwynne, Kipling, Landon, Buxton, and myself. All others are eligible, however, who have dedicated themselves to "telling the truth at all costs and all hazards," so that the mind fails to grasp the future possibilities of its membership.
THE END.