The Irish standard., 1900-09-22
ACx;LIARIES OF THE BRAVE BolES
Picturesque Description Of ,he
Chicago Brigade.
ENGLISH USING EXPLOSIVE BULLETS
Blatant Boasting Of The British
Afford Much Fun.

| John n. McCutchron. special cor
respondent of the Chicago Record.
writes as follows from Mnchndnllorp.
South African Republic. on June %:
Down below the freight house. on a
wind-Swcpt slope worn hard by thn
boat of many hoofs. is n little group of
white tents occupied by the Irish
American colony. There is no better
place to so in Mncladodorp than to
this camp. for there you may hear
good, familiar American slang aga H.
Captain O'Connor and Lieutenant
Ryan, two Chicago men. are in cam,
mand of the camp. While in thr colnny
there are several others from the
veldts near Chicago River.
The colony has seen II yond deal of
fighting since April. Mos, of its mrE,.
lmrs came out with the amh,lan
corps sent from Am, ricn in February.
but there are also II few veterans Of
casual visitor dropping in Upon tie
boys will not realize that he is in the
presence of an ambulance corps for
NIL the talk is reminiscent of service
III the trenches ana saddle, and he will
have to search in1ustriOusly for any
thing in the camp that looks like IL
litter. But he will see all sorts of
rifles and rcvolvers.
In other words, the boys are Irish,
and, seeing fight on, they proceeded
hurriedly to get into the thick of 1t.
Having once got in they stayed. Just
now those who are in Mnchadodorp
are waiting to get fresh horses before
starting for the front again Colonel
Blake, the commander of the Irish
American brigade with the larger part
OF his command, is with General Louis
Bothn up Pretoria way.
These Irish A Amcricans can hardly he
accused of lnkcwarmncsS. One coull
travel from Spltzbcrgcn to Van Die
mems land and never find deeper anti
British sentiments than there are be-
hind the Macha(odorp freight hous,
Even the most radical I'Oer does not
equal one Of the colony in dcnouncing
all things British In an hour you can
hear more fearful stories about Brit
ish military methods than the British
could explain away in II year. These
stories might aptly be called "reversp
English" stories, for they differ radi
cally, Numerically and cmphntically
from the glowing accounts cnanating
from British sources.
At the Irisll-American camp the boys
gave me the "Boer side" Of the story.
and. shades of General Weyler's type
writing bureau, how different it was
from the English side. This evening
n group of the boys were sitting In Il
tent here reading an account Of the
thrilling capture Of KrOonstadt from
copy Of n London paper. "An achieve
mcnt greater than Kandahar," "An-
other brilliant triumph of British
arms" and so on. Sentence by sen-
tencn this account was discussed and
picked to pieces. In one burst OF de-
scriptive writing the correspondent
had described a magnificent bayonet
charge on Il trench full of Beers.
"Fixing bayonets when 500 yards
from the trench, the British troops
charged boldly, utterly routing the enc
nv, who carried off their dead"
That's the British side of the story.
How those Irishmen laughed when
they read of that thrilling bayonet
charge. Said one: -.
"Why, that trench was deserted the
night before the Tommies arrived;'and'
there wasn't an armed Boer within
miles of the place when that brilliant
bayonct charge took place. And I'M
agine q 5OO-yard bayonet charge. too.
This correspondent is fine writ'r
he ought to take up fiction instead OF
history. But perhaps he's only giving
the English people the kind OF st'lif
they want to read"
ooh. that's the way they describe all
these fights added another critic.
"Whcn they are chased back they say
our troops, being greatly outnumbered
by the Beers, then retired in splendid
ORDER"
"And the Beers always lose heavily,
too. The enemy was repulsed with
terrific losses. They left the field ut
terly demoralized, and were seen re-
firing in great confusion across the