’FRISCO MAIL NEWS.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 13 July 1901, Page 4

’FRISCO MAIL NEWS.

Boer Concentration Camp.

Fire in Military Hospital.

Discoveries in Central Africa.

(Per E..M.S. Sonoma at Auckland). San Feancisco, June 20. According to the latest reports there are about 2100 Boers in Cape Colony. They continue to gain a few recruits. In the House of Commons, tho report by Mr Brodrick, Secretary of State for War, of the death of ninety-eight men and women and 318 children in tho the concentration camps during May was greeted with groans and cries of “Scanda-

lons !” by Irish members. Mr Brodrick added that the authorities were arranging for the release of women and children who had friends to receive them, but the Government could not under;ako to care for them in isolated places. Mrs M'Kinley is slowly recovering from her serious illness. Her. trouble originated in a bone abscess, which caused blood infection. She nearly lost her life, hut is now practically out ot.dangcr. A dispatch from Paris states that under the terms of a secret convention with China, Franco will be able to protect the proposed new railway from Tonquin into Yunnan with French troops, exactly as Russia docs in Manchuria. It is added that France intends to exercise her right, though the intention may now be denied.

In America the formation of trusts goes merrily on. A syndicate controlling the most western railway will bffect many changes. The success of the system of steamer lanes across the Pacific Ocean instituted a year ago by the Department is assured. Tho lanes are thirty miles wide, and connect San Francisco with Honolulu, Guam, and Manila, San Francisco with Nagasaki, Puget Sound ports ’with Nagaski, and Honolulu and Guam with Nagasaki. It is proposed to secure the adoption by Congress of Rear-Admiral Bradford’s plan for a comprehensive survey of the Pacific Ocean. The naval attaches of Germany, Great Britain, and Japan are interested, and have proposed to their Governments to participate.

On tho 10ih June a fire broke out in tho military hospital at Presideo, Sxn Franc'sco . Two hundred and six soldiers wtre in the wards, and were only rescued by hero : c efforts of tho hospital corps and soldier and volunteer fire fighters. A few firemen were slightly burned. Several members cf ihe hospital corps were overcome by iho smoke, but not one of ihc helpless patients suffered any injury. The fire started under the library in the hospital building, and the flames burst through tho floor above. The hospital corps, when the bugle brought them to their stations, proceeded to wrap the patients in rxtra blankets a id carry them to a place of safety as quietly as if i; were part of their routine work. Mr Hamilton Johnson, special Commissioner in the Uganda Protectorate, has returned to London after an absence of two years. He brings stories of Uganda rivalling Stanley’s “ Darkest Africa.” The country surrounding Moantelgon has been totally depopulated as a result of tribal wars, and is consequently marvellously stocked by game, as tame as English park deer. Zebras and antelopes can be approached within ten yards, and there is no sport in killing them. Elephants and rhinoceros are also abundant. The Commissioner proposes to maintain the region referred to as a national park. He photographed a race of ape men in the Congo district, differing entirely from Stantley’s pigmies, and secured phonographic records of their language and music. He says there are twelve varieties of rubber trees, and he found an inexhaustible supply.