The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1899-07-29
THE Beers AS THEY ARE.
Alfred Awkward, The Irish Rebel, De-
ScribeS Them.

Alfred Aylward, The Irish Rebel, De-
ScribeS Them.
An English Tory paper with bent
for discovering or manufacturing 's.sen-
sations" has turned on one of its inven-
ton geniuses upon the Transvaal ques-
ton. This particular organ has been
trying to revive the notion that Fenian
influences are at work in the Transvaal,
and in this connection has drawn in
question once more the name OF very
remarkable man named Alfred Awkward,
an Irish rebel" who served for con-
siderable time in the Boer army. Ayl
ward was, unquestionably, "rebel' in
the sense that he had been Fenian, and
never during his life was at any time a
friend Of England. He served the Beers
as military man, but there SENS to be
no foundation for the assertion that he
deliberately worked UP trouble in the
Transvaal."
Awkward, who published book en-
titled "The Transvaal of Today" in 1873
gives some very interesting details Of
the character of the Beers and the con-
ditions of life in their country. Their
character, as we'll as their habits and
customs Che writes) are strongly i'm
pressed by their wanderings and suffer-
ings. If one of the family is about to
ride but few miles beyond his own
extensive holding, before leaving his
house he respectfully bids farewell to
his father and friends with almost as
much ceremony as a European would
use before undertaking journey of
weeks duration.
1t has been asserted that the country
was insolvent-hopelessly broken and
bankrupt. 1t has been proved that it
owed quarter OF million. The people,
however, point to their $4,000 square
miles of new territory, traversed in every
direction by roads, adorned in few
places with churches, small towns, and
rising villages, and sprinkled over at
distances OF nine or ten miles apart,
with the dwellings OF faithful and per-
severing pioneers. They say: eve fled
from you years ago-leave us i'm peace.
We shall pay our debts easily enough
your presence can but tend to increase
them, and to drive us through fresh
wanderings, through new years of blood
shed and misery, and seek homes with
er you will no longer follow us. We
conquered and peopled Natal, you reap
ed the fruits of that conquest. What have
you done for that colony? Do you seek
to do with our Transvaal as you have
done with ito make our land place
of abominaton, defled with female
slavery, reeking with paganism, and like
ly, as Natal is only too soon to be, red
with blood?"
1t is with arguments such as these
(says our author), urged by desperate
men, those who have in the name of
England annexed the Transvaa, will
soon have to deal, and it is to prepare
England and the British people for
ready comprehension of difficulties
rapidly arising that l have ventured, in
plain and unmistakable language, to put
the Beers case-as Beers see it-before
the nation.
Il have said before that their charac-
ter is deeply impressed by their long
period of homeless flight This is re-
markable even in the names they have
given to their sentiments. Weenen, in
Natal, means "the weeping" Lyden-
berg, in the Northeast of the Transvaal,
is the Mountain of Sorrow" The
trek" has set its mark even on their
household ways. Hundreds of families
down to the present hour have not aban-
doned the practice to which they were
reduced in the wilds, of sleeping half
dressed, ever ready to repel an enemy,
or to protect their stock from wild
beatss and proving wolves. They have
come VIGOROUSLY out of dreadful trial
Is it to be wondered at that now they
cry aloud to England, saying, DO not
rob lis OF the freedom we have won
through so much trial and agony
A great tribute is paid to the wives Of
the Dutch South Africans. These de-
voted females have ever been more
patriotic and more determined to be free
than even their lords and masters. True
as wives, tender as nurses, earnest in
prayer, and wise in council, these women
not unnaturally gained lofty influence
amongst the migrating people. They
have ever been and still remain entirely
nti-English. Major Charters, R A.,
speaking OF them as he saw them in 1S41,
says: "The spirit of dislike to English
sway was remarkably dominant amongst
the women. Many OF these who formerly
had lived in affluence, but were now in
comparative want, and subject to all the
Inconvenience accompanying the inse-
cure state in which they were existing
having lost, moreover, their husbands
Il