The morning news., 1899-12-30
BRITISH OFFICERS.
THE
, FINE LOT OF YOUNG FELLOWS
EAGER TO FIGHT.

CIean-Cut Athletes That Look Like
Dandies-A Splendid Lot.
Julian Ralph in the London Mail.
on every ship that arrives in Cape Town
from London are many British army Of
hcers.
some ships bring dozen or twenty:
others as many as fifty. They are the pick
and flower of Englishmen. Most of them
are young men. in the late twenties and
h carly thirties bearing distinguished
4 names, exhibiting che long. slender faces
of the British aristocracy, carrying them
n selves at once like dandies and like ath-
etes.
The one strange thing about them is
4 that nobody is sending them here, and
they do not know to what part of the
seat of war they are going or what they
are going to do. They only know tha,
ihey could not keep away. They are
here to see what they can "the fun
II is a war against bushwackers gueril-
las and sharpshooters, in which a far
greater proportion of officers than men
are certain to be killed, but that does
not matter to them. The first accounts of
skirmlshes they read after they have land
cd tell of the deaths of officers and the
wounding of others. Apparently the man.
ner in which the enemy reveals its pres
/ ence among the hills out Natal way Is
nv the dropping of an officer from his
i saddle or in his tracks as he pushes ahead
3 of his men. What of that? It is part of
"the fun they say.
These fine young fellows have come dur
ing their leaves of absence. which have
been well-eaIned in active service, in dis
aereeable climates, in lonely garrison
posts in the Soudan or on the Indian from
der One who came here with me has
given up billet for which he had cong
been striving, and which was offered 60
Il him just as he had determined to come
h out here and do little fighting for va
ntty Another of my companions on the
n voyage was starting to make a long-pro-
jeCted tour of the world, but this disturb
n anee proved more attractive. A third Of
hcer on he same ship arrived in England
10 see his people. from whom he had long
n been seTarated; but he got no further than
London, and only stayed four days when
he caught the spirit of his comrades and
lied for South Africa. On another ship
was a young man with an income of f40,
eco a year who was just about to be mar
4 ri d. out instead of talking his bride TO
4 St Georges he asked her down TO Water
loo to see him off for Durham.
watched these men or shipboard dur
ile seventeen days They were up at 6
3'c,ock every morning, running so many
Gorns Of times around the deck in Slip
te-s and pljamas in order TO keep them
selves in good condition, then plunging
ito a cold bath and coming back TO the
deck again in flannels, as fresh and bloom
ing as new-cut flowers. All day they read
about South Africa in the little libraries
hey had brought along with them, and
A which they exchanged for other books
thar other men had brought on board.
They were, 1 say again, the best Of Eng
lisrme e'-wide-awake well-informed, proud,
poisred polite, considerate and bounding
with animal health and high spirits.
The more l saw of them the angrier l
got al all have ever read about the vari-
4 GUS fanatical people on earth who are cell
n ebrattd for not being afraid to die-the
Scudan dervishes, / mean, and the stolid
Turks and pilfering Albanians, and now,
last of all, these wooden-headed Beers OF
some of these we are told that they well
\ come death, of others that they believe
a themselves in Gods care. And what of
ihese English? Are they afraid to die?
Who would say such a thing-or think it
4 Tor a moment-of these splendid fellows
who have led England's ranks against
4 every fanatic on earth except the Turk?
A They are as ready TO die as any men, and
\ they rOnk above their foes as towers rise
above the lowly grass, because they risk
their lives with a full knowledge of what
they are doing, and because in risking
4 themselves they risk the most enviable lot
of which any men can boast. The IN
| comes, the estates the wives and sisters,
the companions, the sports, the clubs, the
comforts and the luxuries with which
| these men can surround themselves when
ever they will, are ties which should make
| life dearer to them than the bare hard lot
Of most of the poor wretches whom his
torians and poets have glorifed for not
nnn nf W.
4 estly believe, fears it more than these
splendid, dashing fellows, who keep on
carving empires out of Inc map to swell
the size of England
Been to Government House?" l asked
one Of these men yesterday.
Mo- said he, "and I'm not going.
an afraid they might send me somewhere
out of the thick of things. l don't want
hem to know I'm here. I'm going to wher-
ever It's liveliest. I'll be certain to find
somebody under whom l have served OF
with whom 1 have fought, and so I'll see
The best of it,"
And that was the man who told me that
out of 100 men with whom he studied for
The service seventy-fve are dead already
fifteen of illness and sixty of bullet
woucds and spear thrusts.
Il Is disgusting to leave these men and
turn into any one of the Cape Town hotels
10 find yourself surrounded by the rich
refugees from Johannesburg and 10 heal
them cry like children as they tell you
what they will lose If the British do not
hurry up and take the Transvaal before
NE Beers destroy johannesburg They act
ially cry in their plates at dinner, ano
half strange themselves by sobbing as
Trey drink their whisky at bedtime. The
Mount Nelson, the Queens and the Grano
Hotels are full of these merchants ano
nilionaires, faring on the fat of the land
le, 10 fing ali of every day, and discuss
lng what per cent. of their losses The Brit
lsh government viii pay when they put IN
their claims at the end of the war
some came here as clerks some as la
boiers in the mines and some are mer'
chants who brought ito worth Of goods
ont from Birmingham dozen years ago
Ihey tell you that they have left flO00V
worth. or 10000 worth OF goods in theil
thop ana that altogether f2500),00 is In
aangar of destruction in johannesburg