The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1900-04-18
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ing the contest from the side of the
patriots with deeply mpathetic in
terest, there was something of exhila-
ration in that stage of the contest. So
long as the victim of monstrous
wrong was Furnishing the transgressor
there was an element of exuberant en-
thusiasm in the spectacle. There was
satisfaction in seeing the guilty agrees
sor severely "trounced," though the
inevitable end Of the tragedy, as NOR
tails see things, could not be kept out
of the field of vision. When, however,
British power had so multiplied it's
preponderance that by sheer force of
acknowledging numbers and crushing
weight of armament it was gaining the
supremacy, the essential brutality and
grossness of the contest caused the
spectator with manhood in his nature
instinctively to avert his gaze, as one
might on the delivery of the death
stroke.
Cronje's little army of 1000, beset
by 10000, environed by hundreds of
guns, smothered and shattered by lyd-
dite shells, the gloating of the lordly
victors over the reluctant surrender
the proud "avenging" of Majuba Hill,
after eight days of raining of hell
fire, the jubilations of all England over
these chivalrous events and the unop-
posed entry to the capital of one of the
allies-these have been scenes in this
drama OF war for greed and conquest
which have nightly appealed to the
eensibilities of mankind, and which
have intensified and deepened the alb
horrence with which the great mass of
civilized humanity, outside the British
empire, are regarding the government
of Great Britain.
The breaking up of the Boer camps,
the occupation of new lines of defense,
rendered necessary by the advance of
Roberts legions into the Orange Free
State, was the readjustment of the
stage to a radical change in the enact
,nent of the drama. Interest in the
war participated in the dispersion of
the forces of one of the actors and
their temporary disappearance from
hn ;,,v, ho hf1r
again before the footlights. The cas-
ualties of war have restored the dis
proportion betweenIthe forces to some
thing of the old ratio, and consequent
ly, the Beers, despite such discourage
ments as the loss of Cronje and his
army, the death of their old leader,
Joubert, are again winning victories
and taking British guns and soldiers
into camp. Roberts, himself, the
leader of the jocund excursion to
Bloemfontein, joins the ranks of Eng
lish commanders who in this war have
"regretted" to report such "unfortu-
nate" occurrences as have peopled the
prison camp at Pretoria with British
soldiers and added terror to the stag
gering cost of the war for the subju
cation OF the Transvaal.
But the light that gilds the recent
achievements of the Beers is the ra.
dance of the declining sun. All the
power and resources of world-w ide
empire will be summoned to complete
the CHASTITY task the mine owners of the
Transvaal and the Cape to Cairo rail-
way projectors have set for the Eng
lish people. And the government of
England will complete the task, at any
sacrifce-always excepting some prov.
idential Intervention that is beyond the
ken of man and is outside the wide
radius of human faith.