POSTSCRIPT. 263 



unlikely to accept battle in any situation where 

 they would not be comparatively exempt from 

 danger. 



As for the million demanded as compensation 

 for the outraged moralities of the Transvaal, it 

 would be beneath the dignity of either the Imperial 

 Government or of the Chartered Company to 

 discuss the item, but it will be difficult for those 

 who will be called upon to adjudicate on the sub- 

 ject in question to restrain a hearty laugh when this 

 item is reached. Statesmen, and men of business, 

 are not generally supposed to be experts in the 

 observation or delineation of such microscopic 

 nebulosities as Dr. Leyds, Kruger, and Co. have 

 so insolently presumed to introduce. Indeed, upon 

 the whole, the Chartered Company might do worse 

 than refuse to pay any fraction of the indemnity, 

 but offer to close the matter by a handsome 

 donation to the families of the dead and wounded 

 Boers who suffered in the fight. Further, it would 

 be a graceful act to vote a liberal sum for the relief 

 of the semi-starvation of the multitudes of the 

 Transvaal burghers who have suffered from the 

 effects of rinderpest, locusts, drought, have been 

 decimated by disease, hopelessly pauperised, and 



