The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-04-29

preliminary nearing tne trial Was SET
down for April 81.
When his case was called yesterday
Mr.. Hammond pleaded guilty of trea-
son. Joseph Story Curtis, who, as a
member of the johannesburg reform
committee, was arrested on a minor
charge, has not yet pleaded. He is at
liberty on bail. AS was told in the
morning dispatches from Pretoria, u
statement was read in court in behalf
of Hammond, Phillips, Farrar and
Rhodes, to the effect that they had in
vited DR., jameson to come to Johannes
burg, but that they We're not response
Bile for the Invasion or raid in the end
OF December which was not justified
by the conditions at Johannesburg. AS
soon as they heard that Jameson had
crossed the TransVaal border they sent
out messengers to turn the invading
force back, the statement declared,
They insisted that they had been en-
gagged in legitimate agitation and had
not been guilty of overt treason.
John Hays Hammond, upon whom
sentence of death has been passed by
the high court of Pretoria, is thirty
nine years old and a native of Califor-
MIA. He was graduated from Yale col
lege In 1876. He was classmate of
John II. Bristol, eX-Congressman j. p.
Pigott and DIR. Mailhouse of this city,
Bob Cook, the Yale crew coach, Fred
W. Vanderbilt of New York and other
well known eastern men. After his
course at Yale he took course of
study in mining engineering at Fret
burg. Returning to this country he
soon became known as mining ex-
pert in California and Mexico. In 1893
he went to South Africa to enter the
| service of the Gold Fields of South AT
RIGA company, and the following year
he was nut in charge of an exploring
expedition to Matabeland, an enterprise
of the British South Africa company
His mission was to report upon the
mineral wealth of the country.
He accomplished his task with such
skill and judgment that Cecil Rhodes,
then premier of Cape Colony. engaged
him at a salary of e1,000 a month as
the mining expert Of the British South
Africa company. Mr.. Hammond
headquarters were at Johannesburg
| and he had charge of no less than 49,
600 miners. 1t has been urged In his
defense that if he had seriously medit-
ated open rebellion against the Trans
| vaal republic he had it in his power tc
| put more men into the field than the
Beers could muster themselves, but
| there is no evidence that Hammond
who was the most popular Uitlander in
the Transvaal ever countenanced an
appeal to arms. His influence was EN-
| ployed as far as possible on the side
| of law and order and peaceful agitation
| and he was always reckoned as oppos-
ed to British imperial methods. He
was especially an object of Boer hatred
after the futile Jameson raid because
of his intimacy with Cecil Rhodes. and
no doubt the great wealth which he Is
said to have accumulated made him 9
marked man. Mr.. Hammond is mar
ried and has two sons, who live at 10
hannesburg with their mother. Mrs
Hammond worked like a heroine to OBJ
| tain her husbands release.
SENTENCE COMMITTED.
Washington, April 2s,-Mr. c. H
/ Knight, United States vice consul al
Cape Town, South Africa. has cabled
Secretary Olney that the sentence o.
John Hays Hammond, the American
engineer condemned to death for par,
ticipation in the Jameson raid, is un'
derstood to have been committed.