The evening times., 1899-11-16
Scientific Censorship.

About the only thing of fresh impor-
tance We We're able TO gather from the di
rection of Natal this morning was the set
tied conviction that Sir Redvers Butler
knows his business down to the boots"
His manner of handling the censorship
problem is scientifically superb. He does
not shut OFF all the news; he permits a
carefully selected assortment of fragments
to slip through, always of kind to puzzle
and mislead the military critics.
! The strategic purpose of this policy is
I not far TO seek. Given, the situation at
Ladysmith. COlenso. Estcourt, and Durham
accurately described; the actual force, .,o-
I sitiOns, guns. and so on of the opposing
armies properly stated. and the arrival,
movements. and locations of the re-enforce-
ments truthfully represented; there are
plenty of people in London and around the
War Department in Washington, who-at
any rate between the lot of them-could
outline a prognosis for the next week IS
events, that Butler would not like TO have
the Beers read at all The theatre OF
war in Natal is limited in area, and general
operations within it are confined to a few
simple lines by natural and artificial con-
ditions which are quite obvious to the pro-
fessional mind. The British general-in-
chief does not care how much that mind
guesses, but he is not in the way of help
ing it to sane conclusions.
As result the situation at Ladysmith
is involved in Egyptian darkness There is
no doubt that important things have been
happening there and elsewhere during the
past week, and the accepted theory is that
the war office knows all about them. 1t
is said that the officials at the seat of
knowledge referred to, and at army head
facts. are 50 noticeably in cheerful spirits,
the reasonable inference is that what they
know and refuse to tell is at least not bad
news.
Wild rumors abound. These are prin-
cipally of European origin and doubtless
manufacture. Joubert is reported killed,
but the story is little believed. 1t is re-
garded as q "Kaffirgram,' a suggestive
term the London clubmen apply to reports
brought into the British outposts by in
veracious natives Then it is said that on
Friday last the Beers had pushed their
entrenchments up to within fifteen hundred
yards of Ladysmith. This tale seems to
be generally secuted, although there might
be possibility of its truth. If the enemy,
compared with the garrison, are in the
overwhelming force that is generally es-
timated. they might perhaps be able to
seize one or more of the small rearby
kopjes. and from such cover push works
close to the town. Paris believes, or af-
fects to believe, that Ladysmith has fallen,
and the Anglophobe press cannot find
words sufficiently outrageous to express its
views of British troops and the British ma
ton generally In the absence of news
from the front the populace in England is
feeding its appetite for blood on these
manifestations of Gallo hatred, and SEN
timent regarding France is springing up
which bodies no good to the exposition. and
may become the seed for harvest of reck-
oning one of these days.
knowledge of the fact that nineteen thou
sand troops have arrived so far in South
Africa tends to bolster hope and confidence
in London. 1t is understood that Lord
Me;huen has eight thousand of these at