The Houston daily post. [volume] (Houston, Tex.) 1886-1903, 1900-04-12
OF WAR.
4 Correspondent al the Front Moralizts on
The Matter
MEN WHO MAY BE THE BEST or FRIENDS
VIII Lie In wait to Take Each
Others Life without Any Per-
sonrI Feeling In the Matter.

Correspondence OF the Associated Press.
). London, April s.--As an example OF thu
deadliness of rifle fre from behind en-.
trenchments at short range a STANDARD
correspondent, writing from 0sfortein
March 7. OF the siege of General cronie
says: Colonel Hannay made an extra
Ordinary charge with mounted Infantry
riding his men at gallop right up e
the Boer trenches but all were disabled
or killed before they got Within fifty
yards. Colonel Hannay himself. was
killed"
I During the paardeberg battles, the san's
correspondent relates party Of Kitch-
eners' Horse rode up to Osfontein farm
house. man in Khaki told tho cavalry
men that British troops with guns occu-
pied the sopjes near by, The men off,
saddled.' the correspondent says. "and
were resting when suddenly the cry rose
that the Boers were on them. The house
was surroundd bs the enemy, who fired
into the horses, stampediDg them. Lieu-
tenant Wattermeyer. who mad run for his
horse, was IN the act OF mounting when
boer came around the corLer OF tue
house and tired point blank at nim Thg
bu.iet struck his arms and grazed along
has lett shoulder. lie ial sz-i the reins
raised his rl1e and snos the Boer dead
his morse having polte1, he crossed the
larm yard and gained the garden, snd
thence, ieaplng the wall, escaped across
the PLAIN. Forty three officers and ms
we're killed, wounded or taken prison.
ers by the enemy"
II. +. Provost Battersby thus moraiIzes
in tho Morning Post ON the incongrnities
of war, under date OF Osiont IA. March
s: Art and war. Who has the temerity
still 10 speak II them together. when not
even by their contrasts can they be conf
pared? Beneath me, behind red brown
ant hill, figure Ia khaki is lying with
his cheek against his rifle. his eye along
the sights. There is lump Of iron stone
$40 yards in front OF him, on the lower
slope of a kopje and under ~ a man
whom he Is trying to kill He knows
nothing Of the man, but that he wears
a gray felt hat and has a pretty style
in shooting, for the ant hill has been
three times struck The man knows prob
ably even less of him. Theym owe in or
binary circumstances, 1000 miles apart:
have not an interest nor eean quarrel
| in common. One lives In Chelsea, the
other on the veldt. Each has, perhaps
woman happy, and does his duty by the
state. With less space between then
and no supply OF cartridges, they might
be the best OF friends. Now each dc.
sres only the others end. With lit
tie moro right allowance in that last shot
for wind. the man on the kopje would be
lying quiet among his stones. aud none
lad befallen; but the yultures would
have turned his face upward next morn
Ing to pick out his eyes.
But that Is the inevitable incongrui-
ty OF war, the effect of enmity without
its existence. Wrath bringeth the pun
ishments Of the sword said the writer OF
Job. but the punishment OF the sword
does not always bring wrath. Men can
be made to Stay each other without that
inducamsnt- Lying noA far beyond that
figure In khaki is black patch, The
grey-geen scrub almost colceais It, all
but two queer dark wisps like the talons
of a bird cenched and tmned upwards.
They are the hands OF a man. Beneath
them, looking upward also. is the face
of a Kaffir, One knows IT to be a face
by its position. but the shrapnel which
of black and red with no t-7nan resem-
blance The figure In khaki holds his
nose when the wind passes his way over
1t. There is al title heap OF potatoes be-
side the swollen body, which It was gath
ering when war came by. That also L
an inevitable incongsuity; the doom OF
the peaceful. One accepts 1t with the
other War is this sort OF thing. blind,
senseless, indlscrlminate. 1t is also, after
a fashion. worse than that
There Is out there. spread over the
thorns of mimosa. what was once man.
No one who sees 1t as he passes looks at
1t again. The smear Of yellow on what
is left there speaks OF lydite. That may
seem to the novice the worst side of war
1t ism otreally. he mind hugs II I'm
willingly. perhaps. and shudders. Mem
DRY can not drop II by the wav. II lends
horror TO ones dreams, Fs--s In war IT.
is merely gruesome incident a common
one. possibly but an incident always, not
an atmosphere.
1.-THE atmosphere is very different. One
br -athes 1t here, where the bullets are
flying oyer. through the crack OF the rides
with their strange soft eyes and the Bit !
ter reek of the dead is mixed with dust
and the faint scent OF flowers mixed ,too I
It may be, with the memory of that long !
shallow thrench beyond the camp. where
the brown-kneed Highanders lie Ia thsi,
gay hose and kits beside the stiff i'll I
figures In khaki. 1t Is In that air that I
art sounds so strange a note that II seem
but an echo from another world. That
is not figure OF speech. To think stelf- |
lastly here of an art-of the soul OF az I
art--is to effect a transformation In rer- I
sonality no less astonishing than th9t I
which Robert Louis Stevenson conceived |
for Dr. Jekyll
THE change really is incredible Il Is I
almost Impossible to describe. One NUT |
live here first in this bare, empty land |
with life grown suddenly cheap and d.ath /
eways about one: with friends buried II |
niFht that shared ones biscuit In the |
morning: friends whose long fondness Is
forgotten in tomorrow's battle ana re-
membersd aeain with an into'crah'o |
smart with destruction and victory only /
in ones thoughts. and the ruin and foul |
ness OF an army round one-lt Is IN tn7f
one must be steeped TO reslize how FIR |
one has come: so far so far that yisi1p |
and thought and beauty seem left behind
one in another world