HISTORY 



27 



BISHOPS AND POPES OF ROME Continued 



Blue Laws. The code of 1660, a compila- 

 tion of the earliest laws and customs of Connec- 

 ticut. It is almost verbally copied from the 

 Mosaic Law. After the restoration of Charles 

 II. " Presbyterian true blue" became a term of 

 derision applied to anything which smattered 

 of Puritanism, and "blue laws" simply meant 

 puritanical laws, or laws with a blue tinge. 

 l:i\vs inflicted the penalty of death for 

 worshiping any god but the God of the Bible; 

 for -peaking disrespectfully of the Bible, Christ, 

 or the Holy Ghost; for witchcraft, adultery, 

 . false-swearing, and disobedience to par- 

 Said to have been drawn up by the Rev. 

 Samuel Peters, but generally supposed to be 

 apocryphal. 



liorr War, The. The reinforcing of the 

 Hritish troops in South Africa, aloni; the borders 

 of the Transvaal Republic, together with differ- 

 the franchi-c question, coupled with 

 j^rim recollections of former armed clashes be- 

 tween Great Britain and the sturdy, patriotic 

 led t hasten the conflict of 1899- 

 l'"io. one of the most sanguinary in the world's 

 history. As an effort to avert war, a conference 

 . 1899, between Sir Alfred 

 Milner. (iovernor ol Cape Colony, mid the I 

 drui. of the Dutch Republic! at Bloemfontein, 



in which term- !<>r the adjustment of the claim- 



B outlander- were di-cussed, but no nr 

 merit was reached. Between .June 1 and < ' 



her 10. negotiations proceeded between the r 



erm- -reat Britain and t he I 



while the of the latter adopted li 



which were not acceptable to Great 



Ml. Ill the meantime. both Coimtne- made 



tie preparation- for war, and the Orange 

 Mate amiouneed that in case of hostilities i 

 it would support the Transvaal. 



On October 10th, the Transvaal sent to the 

 British Government an ultimatum demanding: 

 That all points of mutual difference be regulated 

 by friendly recourse to arbitration or by what- 

 ever amicable way might be agreed upon by 

 the governments concerned; that all British 

 troops on the border of the Transvaal Republic 

 should be instantly withdrawn; that Great 

 Britain should withdraw all reinforcements of 

 troops landed in South Africa since June 1, 

 1899, with assurance that during further nego- 

 tiations the Republic would not attack any 

 British possessions, and that upon compliance 

 with the ultimatum the Republic would be pre- 

 nared to withdraw from the borders the armed 

 burghers of the Transvaal ; that the British troops 

 then on the high seas should not be landed in 

 any part of Africa; that an answer to the ulti- 

 matum be received by the Republic not later 

 than 5 o'clock P. M. on October llth; that an 

 unsatisfactory answer would be regarded by the 

 Republic as' a formal declaration of war by 

 Great Britain, as would also be a further move- 

 ment of British troops in a nearer direction to 

 the Republic's borders. 



On October 1L'. IV.I'.. the reply of the British 

 having been uti-at i-tactor\ . the Transvaal Boers 

 invaded Natal, advancing toward Newcastle, 



which wa- defended lv the Bnti-h p 

 White and Symon-. the British evacuated 

 Newcastle and fell back on Ladysmith. when >. 

 on October l.'ith. there was a strong Bnti-h 

 force. On October 2(>th. the Boers begun the 

 siege of Kimberlev. and on the same day in 

 Natal was fought the battle of Dundee, in which 

 the British repulsed the Boers, suffering a loss of 

 L'l.'i in killed and wounde tober 21st, 



iptured the I'. 



Klandslaagte after a hard battle, with a British 



