Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1900-06-09
NOT YET
TAKEN BY BRITISH
Gen. French Was Within Eight
Miles Of the Boer Capital
Last Thursday.
HAS BEEN SOME. HARD FIGHTING
No Definite News Has Been Re-
ceived, But the British Have
Evidently Met Consider
able Opposition.

London, June 5.-There is no direct
Thursday evening. General French's
cavalry were then at Irene, eight
miles south Of Pretoria, and firing
was heard there. Lord Roberts mes
sages about secondary operations
elsewhere and the situation at johann
nesburg, dated at Orange Grove, a
farm four miles northeast of johann
nesburg, show that on Saturday at
0:1O p. m. he was twenty-five miles
from Pretoria.
The correspondents with Lord Rob-
erts have not got through a n
about the operations after the occupa-
ton of Johannesburg. Official mes
sages continue TO come through, but
press kilograms are held up, probably
to avoid their giving even u nil as 10
what may be the pending operations
Passengers arriving at LourenZo
Marquee Saturday direct from Pre-
toria say that the capital was prepar-
ing TO surrender when they left
Thursday. The forts were dis
mantled. The Boer guard at komatl-
poort searched all trains and turned
back most Of the fugitives, among
them deserving foreigners who were
trying to reach neutral soil.
Immense Boer conveys of provis-
ions are between Pretoria and Middle
burg. Fifteen trains are sent daily to
Machadasdoran with supplies for Ly-
denburg. Pretoria is pictured by the
refugees as in q state of indescrlbable
confusion and chaos. The populace
are dismayed, and the British are cN-
pected hourly. .
Some foreign attaches have arrived
at Lourenzo Marquee to communicate
with their governments for orders TO
leave, as they consider that organized
war, on the Tr~ansvaal side, is at an
end. FLYING among the Beers are re-
ports that the British have been beat
en- back at Lindley, with heavy loss;
that the main attack on Elandsfon-
tein failed and Lord Roberts was
forced to retire 10 Klipsriverburg;
that the railway has been cut behind
him south Of Vereeniging, and that n
provision train has been captured.
Without crediting any of the Boer
bulletins, everything from the field OF
war, behind Lord Roberts, points to a
great effort last week to paralyze his
advance Nv IL VIZ SllbhS " VIZ
eastward at the railway north of
Bloemfontein. -Four Ioer columns
were i'm a movement seemingly with
this objective. There was n COM
mando in front of General Brabant,
near Ficksburg, another faced Gen
eral Rumble near Senekal, n third oc-
cupied Lindley and pressed toward
the railroad, and a fourth seized He'll
bron and pushed toward Kroonstad.
These operations, assuming them to
have been independent, all appear to
have failed.
The revival of the Boer fighting
power east of Lord Roberts advance,
although fruitless, is n symptom that
the Beers are not yet crushed. In
General Rundle's attack on the en-
trenched Beers seven miles east of
Senekal, May 20, the British did not
see a Boer all day, so completely were
they screened. The British infantry
did not get within 1000 yards of their
rifemen. The 1872 losses wired by
Lord Roberts were suffered by the
grenadiers and Scots guards while
advancing over a level from which the
grass had been burned. The British
ers in khaki were n conspicuous tar
get against the black background.
General Rumble withdrew his whole
force at shutdown to Senekal, having
succeeded in drawing the Beers from
Lindley, allowing the threatened
force to get away safely. The Beers
SEN to the British for medical help,
saying that Commandant de Nilliers
was seriously wounded. General Run
die sent a doctor, with a bottle of
champagne and his compliments, as
well as a message that he would re-
lease all the Boer prisoners at Sen
aknl