of the surrender of the Potchefstroom garrison, which was secured by treacherously suppressing the news of the armistice between the two forces (a treachery for which public reparation was afterwards exacted by Sir Evelyn Wood), the treatment of certain prisoners of war (compelled to work for the Boers exposed to the fire and being shot down by their own friends in the garrison), the summary execution of other prisoners, the refusal to allow certain of the women to leave the British garrison, resulting in the death of at least one, are matters which although sixteen years old are quite fresh in the memory of the people in the Transvaal.  The condition of Dr. Jameson’s surrender revived the feeling that Mr. Cronje has need to do something remarkable in another direction in order to encourage that confidence in him as an impartial and fair-minded man which his past career unfortunately does not warrant.  Commandant Trichard, mentioned in this connection as a witness, was one of the commandants who refused to confirm the terms accorded by Cronje to Jameson.  Mr. Abel Erasmus is a gentleman so notorious that it would be quite unnecessary to further describe him.  He is the one whom Lord Wolseley described as a fiend in human form, and threatened to “hang as high as Haman.”  Abel Erasmus is the man who had desolated the Lydenburg district; the hero of the cave affair in which men, women, and children were closed up in a cave and burnt to death or suffocated; a man who is the living terror of a whole countryside, the mere mention of whose name is sufficient to cow any native.  Mr. Schoeman is the understudy of Abel Erasmus, and is the hero of the satchel case, in which an unfortunate native was flogged well-nigh to death and tortured in order to wring evidence from him who, it was afterwards discovered, knew absolutely nothing about the affair.  The Queen, or Chieftainess, Toeremetsjani, is the present head of the Secocoeni tribe and the head wife of the late chief, Secocoeni.  This tribe, it will be remembered, was the one which successfully resisted the Boers under President Burger and Commandant Paul Kruger—­a successful resistance which was one of the troubles leading directly to the abortive annexation of the Transvaal.  The Secocoeni tribe were afterwards conquered by British troops, and handed over to the tender mercies of the Boer Government upon the restoration of its independence.

It is necessary to bear these facts in mind in order to realise the hideous significance of the unvarnished tale.

Now to the trial.

Mr. Advocate WESSELS, who acted for the natives, gauging pretty accurately what the defence would be, called two witnesses to prove the prima facie case.  Jesaja, one of the indunas flogged, whose case was first on the roll, proved that he was flogged by order of Commandant Cronje without any form of trial, and without any charge or indictment being made against him, and that he received twenty-six lashes, the extra one being given because he declined to say ’Thank you’ for the twenty-five.  Commandant Trichard next gave evidence, and from him Mr. WESSELS elicited that Cronje had gone through no form of trial, but handed over Jesaja and the other twelve indunas to be flogged by Erasmus and Schoeman.