A Belgian Nurse on the Boers.

Manawatu Herald, 25 September 1900, Page 3

A Belgian Nurse on the Boers.

Mmc Bron, one of the Belgian nurses who went out to tend the Boer sick and wounded is about to publish her experiences in South Africa both with Boer forces and afterwards in the British camp when her ambulance fell into our hands at Jacobsdal. The Brussels " Reforme " publishes some extracts from tbe introduction to the volume. Mme. Bron says "First of all I wish to state, that having gone out to help the Boers, I continued to serve them in spite of my growing disgust. The Boer is not wicked, and he is fairly hospitable. He is a brute or rather a stupid overgrown child. He is obstinate and boastful. As for honesty and morality, we had better not dwell on these points. His pride is beyond conception and his power of lying. As for his respect for women, I could relate details and furnish evidence, but it would be too nauseous. It was amongst British soldiers — I say it and repeat it, and no power on earth will induce me to deny the truth— it was amongst them that I found myself once more at home, surrounded by that gratitude, that affection, to which the humble folk of my own country had accustomed me. How good it was to find oneself treated as a fellow-crea-ture, after six weeks of cruel toil in a Boer hospital, full of typhoid patients, without a single word of kindness." She further says— The Boers fought because they bad been told the English were coming to take their farms. Had they been satisfied their lands would remain untouched with a present of money thrown in, they would never bave fought at all." Threats have been made to induce Mme. Bron not to publfth her book.