The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-06-01
ADVANCE OF LORD ROBERTS
THE BRITISH FLAG RAISED OTEE
 JOUANNESB UIG.


 Fall of Pretoria Imminent if Not Al.
 ready Fpct-FIight of Presiden'
 Kruger, His Cabinet and fgIcial stDf 1T,
 Confrmed by Later Adviccs-Nine
 Engines and Over 100 Wagons cap
 tured at tJohanncsburg.
 London, May 31.-Shortly before mid
 night the war office announced that
 Lord Roberts had raised the British
 Johannesburg. The news is given in 0
 dispatch from Lord Roberts as follows:
 Johannesburg, May 31, p. m.-Her
 majesty's forces are now in possession
 of Johannesburg and the British flag
 floats over the government buildings"
 The Daily Mail says it has received
 cable dispatches this afternoon from
 correspondents at Pretoria completely
 confirming Lord Rosslyn's dispatch of yesterday announcing the imminent fall of the capital of the Transvaal.
 Related messages from Pretoria con- firm the reports of the departure of
 President Kruger with his cabinet and staff officials Tuesday night and the se- lection at meeting of citizens of a
 committee to administer the city pro- visionally. Since these telegrams left on Wednesday nothing apparently reached Lourenzo Marquez by telegraph frA, ,,;1 I, 1,o been cut. Possibly the Boer censorship at some immediate point intercepts tele- grams.
 Although the war office has not re- ceived a word about it no one in Lon don harbors the idea that the Boer capi7 tai is not already in the hands of the British or about to be there. The pos session of Johannesburg at all events, as Lord Roberts has telegraphed, is fact States Attorney Shuts did not depart with President Kruger, but re- malned in Pretoria.
 The present seat of the Boer govern ment, according to dispatch from Lourenzo Marquez dated yesterday is Middeburg but it will probably be shifted further east.
 The Boers lately confronting Lord Roberts appear to have gone eastward, also, toward Lydenburg region. The defenders of Laing's Nek, when their position becomes too perilous, will prob ably trek straight northward toward Lydenburg. When this concentration takes place there will be possibly twen- ty thousand men, who may hold out for a time, with scattered bands of guerillas elsewhere.
 The press dispatches from Lord Rob erts' headquarters give no estimate as to the number of Boers who were fight ing General French and General Ian Hamilton Monday and Tuesday, but they all agree that the Boers retired and that the British casualties were slight.
 Bennett Burleigh. writing to the Daily Telegraph from Elansfontein Tuesday, says: Much rolling stock and seven engines have been captured by Lord Roberts column, The principal losses in the fighting have been sustained by the Mounted Infantry but the casual ties are trifling. General French and General Hamilton were engaged to the west of johannesburg. Since Sunday the western columns have been fighting, Uul dllIOuSu guns were uStu, lIIG dC- tions were never serious In fact, they were only big skirmishes. The Boers are retreating to Pretoria"
 MT. ProvostB Batterbsy in a dispatch to the Morning Post from Germiston, dated May 30, says: "The enemy fought | a rear-guard action, retiring from the | south to the north of the town with l their pom-poms and artillery in the | and with drawing their rifle men through the town in the afternoon. | We captured nine engines and over one hundred wagons. Two trains are leav- ing tonight for the VaaL We suc- ceeded in cutting the line in three di- rections and imprisoning all the rolling stock in Johannesburg It was splen- did piece of work. The enemy were astounded at the rapidity of our ad- vance"
 Another correspondent, telegraphing from Germiston to same day says: "I earn that the Boers are massing six miles south of Pretoria, for new and desperate stand, with a front of twelve niles"
 Other rumors' in the camp of Lord Roberts are that President Kruger is i'll 1t Lydenburg and that the ammunition If the Boers is running short. M H. Donohue, a correspondent of the Daily Chronicle was captured yesterday.
 Some discussion is going on in Lon Ion as to what will be done with Pres dent Kurger if he is captured. One dea is that he will be sent to St. Helena mother that he will be tried for trea- on. The Daily Express says: INT. al e140,000 of the presidents money in and and mines. This took place before he war broke out, and to this fact may ,e ascribed the failure of the Transvaal to blow up the mines"