NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 14 November 1901, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Queen Victobia dies, and America sorrows ; the American President is struck down by the hand of the assassin, and Great Britain weeps. Common sufferings begets common sympathy in the groat heart of Anglo-Saxondom. 1 So, too, otherwise. When Gladstone was called hence America recognised that the greatest of all English-speaking men had passed away. And when Europe would fain have borrowed the British fleet in the matter of Cuba and in order to cterec the United States to forego her conflict with Spain, Great Britain was not slow to indicate that if the British guns were to speak at all in the conflict, their hoarse voices would more likely be heard on the other side. And now President Koosevelt has shown unmistakable kindly feelings towards Britain. All of which goes to show that “ blood is thicker than water,” that English-speaking communities arc 'linked together by a cord of sympathy not easily broken.

And it is not very singular that it should be so, for with two exceptions, one being the present occupant, America Presidents h ive all been of British desent. Washington, Madison, .and Lincoln were Engligh; M‘Kinley3'Munro, Grant, and Hayes, were of Scottish origin; Buchanan, Polk, Jackson, and Arthur a mixei Scotch-Irish origin; Tan Bureu, like Roosevelt, was of Dutch descent ; while Jefferson, whom someone had “ the noblest Roman of them all,” was a Welshman. The present President is said to have stronger leanings towards Britain than any of his predecessors, his intimate knowledge of the part England played in the recent war with _ Spain having convinced him that Britain was America’s only friend.

With soldierly breviety and bluntness General J. C. Maxwell, the Military Governor of Pretoria, a Scot, at once distinguished, brave, humane, and beloved by his men, characterises Mr Von Broekhuizen, “ though a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church,*’ “an accomplished liar.” The rev. person in question had contributed t) the New lork Press a story of British inhumanity in the capital of the Transvaal. A correspondent in the Empire City, a Mrs J, B. Campbell,’ thoughtfully forwarded to General Maxwell the tale of the defender of Boerdom. Mr Von Brookhuizen had better have refrained from advertising himself in the high places of the field, for not only does General Maxwell aoundly assert him to be an accomplished liar, but he tells in a few crisp words something of the rev. person’s character. “He was not expelled by me,” he says: “he left on his own accord, leaving his aged mother in my charge. His lecture from start to finish is a tissue of falsehoods. . . . He is an imposter.” So much forjMr Von Broekhuizen.

A British officer who has served in South Africa, and is now in the United States tells, a characteristic story of Lord Kitchener. A young subaltern in charge of some construction work in Upper Egypt had the misfortune to lose some native workmen through the accidental explosion of several cases of dynamite. Fearful of “wigging” from headquarters, he telegraphed to the Sirdar, “ Kegret to report killing of ten labourers by dynamite accident.” He awaited the expected rebuke with fear and trepidation. In a few hours came this laconic despatch™ “Do you need any more dynamite ?'*