The morning times. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1895-1897, 1896-09-06

avenue, adjoining WIZARDS Hotel, daily
from o to 8 Monday, Wednesday, Thurs
/. day and Saturday evenings. to 8; Sun
days, 10 to IL.
CONSULTATION IN n nf as9Tsn FREE
threesot four weeks, and subjected 1t to
such dela and to such treatment on the
way up as they hoped would finally drive
the Uitlanders into abandoning the use OF
the more direct route from the Cape.
Sooner than do this he Uitlanders organ
lied a system OF ox-carts and started to
carry their freight overland in that slow
and cuInbrous fashion. Toprevcnt their do
ing this, the government closed the drifts, /"
as the fords of the rivers are called, and
SO prevented their crossing. 1t required an
ultimatum from Great Britain to open them
again.
These are a few instances of the laws
and customs OF government which has been
seeking sympathy as free and enlightened
republic, and which compares, and not
unfavorably, with the free and enlightened
republics of Central America.
i Discomfort GREW APACE.
The spirit of discomfort caused by these
grievances grew slowly and showed itself
when it first found expression in the form
of perfectly constitutional agitatious In
May, 1894, $4,000 Uillanders petitioned
the Volksraad for the rights Of the fran
chise, and IT is on record in the minutes
of that legislative body that this petition
was received with jeers andlaughter. That
i'll itself was not soothing TO the petition
ers, especially as it came from the repre-
sentatives of those of the inhabitants who
were in the minority, for even ut that time
the Uitlanders greatly outnumbered the
original settlers OF the Transvaal. Two
months later another petition, signed this
time by 80 300 inhabitants. was received
by the Volksraad in the same manner, one
of its members, indeed, going SO far as to
rise and say: III you want the frau
chise, why don't you fight for it,"
His invitation was accepted later, when
the Inhabitants of johannesburg, finding
there was no help to be obtained through
the sacred right Of Petition organized
the reform committee and prepared them
selves to take what they wanted by a revo-
luton and the use Of arms.
am convinced, after having talked with
the men who, were at the head of this revo-
luton, that the greater part of them as
henestly7belieyed that they were acting for
the best good of the country in trying to
overthrow the Boer government as did the
revolutionists OF 1875 in our own country,
or Is do the rebels in Cuba at the present
day. .........
Six weeks before the Jameson raid the
reform committee had mapped out their
plan Of acton. They had spent fTO, 900
$3.50, 000) in provisions, which they ex-
pected would outla st a two months siege;
they had arranged that the water supply
OF Johannesburg could not be cut off from
the outside, and they had ordered rifles
aud Maxim guns and were smuggling them
across the border This was the most diff
cult part of their work, for guns are as
strictly prohibited to Uitlanders in ohan-
nesburg as are public meetings, and every
one who owned rifle was a marked man
In consequence.
, 1t was while these guns for defense were
slowly coming in that DR.. Jameson, the
administrator of the Chartered Company's
affairs, was told of the movement of the
revolutionists and asked by them IL he
would .ajn case they needed his assistance,
come across the border, to the aid OF his
fellow-countrymen, bringing with him his
mounted police, and 800 extra guns, which
they would send him to MafekiDg. The
gentlemen of the reform committee were
DR.. Jameson's personal friends, they had
trekked with him all over the surrounding
country, hunting, prospecting and eNplor-
ing, they knew he was a man re dy for adj
venture, and that in the easy spirit of the
unsettled country about them it would not
be difficult for him to gather around him a
body OF men ready to go wherever he led
Jameson gave his consent readily, and
agTeed to the conditions under which he
was to enter the Transvaal.
A TRIANGULAR SITUATION.
The situation at this time was stretched
geographically in the form of a triangle,
with three bases Of action, all working to
the same end. The members of the reform
committee, who were preparing to demand
certain reforms and concessions, and ready,
if they failed to get them peaceably, to
fight for them, were at johannesburg, DR..
Jameson, with his fihbusters who We're to
rush in, but only when they were wanted
and If they W ere wanted, was at Mafeking,
and Cecil Rhodes. the unknown quantity,
was at the Cape, aiding and advising them
all
The letter to Jameson was signed by five
men, and the date was purposely omitted.
These five men were Charles Leonard,
British subject born in the Cape Colony,
educated at Cambridge, and a prominent
lawyer OF Johannesburg, where he had
practice which amounted to $50 900 year:
Col. Francis Rhodes, brother of Cecil
Rhodes and an officer In the English army,
who has seen service in India and in the
Seudan: John, Hays Hammond, who, as
mining expert, now commands Il salary just
twice as large as that OF the President OF
the United States; Lionel Phillips. the
largess Individual property owner in the
Transyaal. and George Farrar an importing
merchant.
These men,, who, with the exception Of
Leonard, who escaped to England. were
afterward tried by the government and
sentenced to be hanged, were properly de-
scribed by Jameson as Leading citizens Of
Johannesburg" as they would have been
leading citizens in any community in which
they Glanced to live.
During the six weeks which interviewed
between the delivery Of this letter and the
raid the reform committee continued act
lively in its preparations for the defense Of
the city. Its plan was to declare itself
on the 9Th OF January. By that time it
hoped to have. 5000 rifles, a sufficient
number of Maxim guns, and 1,000, 900
OF Johannesburg and in the surrounding
mines; IL also counted, with reason, on
having control Of the forts which covered
the city, and which were at that time
guarded by few Boer soldiers, who would
have been driven out by assault.
.aa - THEsFLY4NG WEDGE.
1t was, then. at this point, when the
minds OF 6alf the people in the country
would be- watering sas, to whether it was
better to join the reforn,ers or to uphpn
the old regime, tb1t Dr., Jameson was to
have come in With his 1 800 police, Ike
flying wedke" And bling the Wavering
ones, both uitlaudefs and Boers, nom
ranches. fafnss. and villages, and deliver
this triumphant addiflon 70 his own well
organized force into the hands Of the pro-