The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-07-03
PRESIDENT KRUGER,s YOUTH.
A Friends "Reminiscences of the Days
They We're Soldering Together.
{Bay City (Nich.} Letter in Boston Tran

Iney were S0luleflnis IOgetner.
(Bay City (Mich.l Letter in Boston Tran
script,}
Residing in this city and employed as
purchasing agent by a provision COM
mission house, is a man named Joseph
Wander Heuvel, who authorizes me to
use his name. Hearing that this man
had been an old-t time comrade Of the
present ruler of the South African re-
public, interviewed him. found him
to be a stoutly built man, about five
feet seven inches in hight and fifty
seven years of age, but, although he
has been twenty-five years in this
country, his speech is such a curious
tumble of English and Dutch that it
was with difficulty I could understand
it,
To report his language verbatim is
an utter impossibilily; therefore,
must give the substance Of Naat ne
told me in my own. promising that
Joe" as his intimates call him, bears
a good character and appears to be en-
tirely truthful
A1S s'sb9 . liitll AAl d$sCl 40 iloW III
nine years of age, and was formerly a
great chum of his. When the former
was about twenty and he eighteen
both enlisted at the same time in one
of Holland $ cavalry regiments, the
name Of which / could by no means
make out, though Mr.. Van der Heuvel
wrote 1t for me under his own sigma
ture on a piece Of paper; but I cannot
successfully copy either the one or the
other
According tolssJoe's" account, he and
his comrade were wild, devil-may-
care fellows, but, being smart sol
s aaiieerrs 2 both gradually rose to the rank
Of iieutenant--a rank the precise value
of which in the Dutch army don't un-
derstand, as 1t seems that, like our
non-commissioned officers, a lieutenant
there wears a certain number OF stripes
on one sleeve of his uniform These
marks of distinction our two heroes
lost, however, imam inglorious manner.
One night they went to a popular bali,
drank too much schnapps. and got 50
fighting drunk that they drove all the
other guests out at the swords point,
and then proceeded to smash things
generally and kick UP such a rumpus
that guard was finally sent down to
arrest them
Next morning their stripes Were torn
off and they were reduced to the ranks;
and" said Joe, II guess we would
have been punished worse If the colonel
hadn't been my mothers uncle"
For while this disgrace made the
young fellows reckless, and they sat
into all sorts of scrapes. One night,
while still in this mood, they went, per-
force unarmed as they were forbidden
to go out otherwise for the present--to
some sort Of a, Notification. Of TO Yneun-
prcnounceable name. Here, both be-
ing full of liquor, they behaved SO out
rageously that score Of men in the
crowd rushed forward to expel them,
which was not effected, however, until
Kruger, who was wonderfully strong
and active, had stretched fully one-naf
| the number on the floor. ooh, Kruger
was a good man." Joe said a dozen
times In the course of his disjointed
narrative.
| Good, how" I asked.
"Oh, every way; brave, kind, gene
| everything! He'd give friend
| his last kreutzer or risk his life a hun
dred times over for him; hut he was
terribly hard hater, too, and couldn't
very easily forgive an insult"
WAS he skilled in the use of arms?"
| "You bet,'' replied Joe--an emphatic
| Americanism at last. "He was the
| best rifle and pistol shot and the best
swordsman / ever saw. You ought TO
| have seen hint" And the old trooper
caught up my cane, stepped to the
middle of the room and gave capital
| exhibition of thrust and stroke, guard
and point why he resumed, KILL
ger wasn't afraid of anything on earth
I've seen him shoot hungry lion dead,
right in the air, when it was springiag
straight at him, and he was no more
| excited than If it had been a rabbit.
| And I saw him once kill fifteen men
| with saber"
| Fifteen men with a saber?" I
| echoed. ''How could that be? You
| had no bloody wars in Holland,
| think"
| ING" he rejoined, and again I must
turn his mixed speech into plain Eng
iish, ''it wasn't exactly war. It was a
big mutiny of one wing of a foot resi-
ment. What caused it L could not for
nv 1if" make out. But / must go back
| some and tell you that Kruger and 1
had quit our wild ways and for good
ecnGuct had been given our old rank
again Well, when this mutiny broke
out, the two troops he and l belonged
to were sent out one morning to quell
| it and arrest the leaders Just outside
| the barracks we met about four hun
dred of the mutineers, who were all
| armed with muskets and bayonets, but
had not been able to get any cart
ridges. We had not been allowed to
bring our firearms, so carried only cur
sahers, the authorities thinking we'd
overawe the rioters at once.