Connecticut western news., 1900-04-12
BOERS CLAIM VICTORY.
Report That British Have Met
 Crushing Defeat.
LOSS SAID TO BE FIFTEEN HUNDRED

De Wet, According to Dispatchs. Att
 tackled Enemy at Meerkatsfontein.
 Taking 900 Prisoners and Killing
 and woundinS 600.
 London, April IA third very serious defeat has been inflicted upon the British forces in the Orange Free State. accord ing to dispatches to The Daily Mail. quot ing advices from Boer sources.
 The reported facts of the victory are that on Saturday General De Vets burghers attacked a British force 1900 strong at Meerkatsfontein. After fierce engagement. i'll which. according to one account. 600 British were killed or wounded, the Boers captured the entire command.
 The war office has not made public any dispatches indicating the possibility of such an engagement, nor do any of the press telegrams received from corre- spondents with the British army. many of which bear later date than Saturday, contain any hint of this disaster.
 As Lord Roberts has hitherto never failed to report promptly mischances as we'll as successes. or to allow the newspa- per correspondents to report them, the Meerkatsfontein rumor may be only an exaggerated account of the RedderSbure affair.
 Location Not Certain.
 The location of MeerkatSfontein, where the battle is said to have been fought. is uncertain. One dispatch says it is to the south of Bloemfontein and apparently in the neighborhood of Reddersburg. If this be the case, the British force alleged to have been cut off might be the column which Gatacre sent to Reddersburg to aid the hard pressed British force there which arrived after the surrender and then retired to Bethanie.
 Another Pretoria dispatch locates the battlefield south of Brandfort and north of Bloemfontein, in which case it might be part of General Fuckers division which has been lying at karee Siding since the battle around the kopjes there.
 Most of the dispatches agree in stating that the British lost in killed, wounded and prisoners 1,500 men.
 Hard fighting took place Monday and yesterday around Wepener, where part of General Brabant's colonial division is being attacked by the Boers. The losses in the first days battle are said to have been heavy. The burghers have been re-enforced by a commando from De Vets dorp and renewed the attack yesterday, the result of which is not
 
 known.
 That Lord Roberts realizes the seri- ousness of present conditions ill the Free State is shown by the fact that General Rundle, with his Eighth division, has been ordered to Springfontein. This puts 10000 more men on duty to guard the railway and keep the Boers away from the British line of communications.
 Again Invading Cape Colony.
 Boers have again crossed the Orange river, which will tend to stir up a new rebellion among the Dutch in the north of Cape Colony. They are in greatest force near Aliwal North, at Odendaal- stroon. east of Bethulie and south of Smithfeld. They have destroyed the pont over the river.
 Practically the Boers hold the whole of the Free State east of the railway, all the way from Ficksburg to the Orange river. Two thousand of them are said to be marching from Smithheld on Springfontein Junction.
 It is very probable that with only his division General Gatacre would not have been able to hold all the railway line as Tar north at the katir river had not Bundles division been ordered to his as ~istanee.
 It is now made plain that Colonel Plumer penetrated within six miles of Mafeking on March 31. but was then obliged to retire to avoid being outfiank- cd. He fell back not merely to Klamath .abama, but even to his base camp.
 Until the Boer besiegers are seriously threatened from the south it seems cer- ain that the relief of Mafeking cannot 5e effected. Weeks must elapse before he Rhodesia horse of Plumer can be re-enforced by any troops coming by way of Beira and Salisburg.
 Mafeking and its heroic defenders may have weeks of weary waiting yet before them unless the investing army is called off to some other quarter.