CONDENSED CABLEGRAMS

Manawatu Herald, 22 February 1902, Page 2

CONDENSED CABLEGRAMS

The Transvaal. ENGAGEMENT WITH DE WET. Reuter’s Agency reports that Colonel De Lisle’s and Colonel Fanshawe’s column engaged General De Wet with a large force at Trommer on the 16th inst., capturing ten men and a heliograph. De Wet ordered his followers to split into small parties to evade harassment. ATTEMPTED TRAIN WRECKING. Boers mined the railway between Machadodorp and Dalmatiitha, east of Pretoria, hoping to rescue General Ben Viljoen, who is a prisoner. The bogie truck in front of the armoured train exploded the mine and the train escaped. Viljoen was not a passenger. LAAGERS SURPRISED, Lord Methuen’s troops surprised two small laagers capturing forty of the enemy.

DEFECTIVE SCOUTING. Published despatches to the War Office show that Lord Kitchener condemned the precautions taken against surprise at Tweefontein —where General De Wet inflicted a serious reverse on a British force under Major Williams on Christmas Eve—as having been most defective. CONTRACT SCANDALS. At Lord Roberts’s suggestion General Truman, head of the Remount department, has provisionally resigned pending an inquiry with respect to alleged scandals. MISCELLANEOUS. Dr de Kuyper, the Netherlands Premier, is convinced that the mission of the Boer delegates to America will be fruitless. The inmates of the Pietersburg and Heilbron concentration camps have been sent to the coast at Durban, Natal. . The strick censorship now being exercised over the news from South Africa is interpreted as a indication that Lord Kitchener is organising a big move. An officer states in a letter that prisoners taken when General Botha’s laager was captured at Knapdaar declare that Louis Botha also was captured, but was not recognised. He was placed in charge of the British rearguard, but escaped in the confusion. Latest. BOERS CAPTURE DRAGOONS. Gilbert Hamilton reports having marched to Nigel on the 18th and engaged the Boers at Klippen, whom he failed to dislodge. Part of the second Dragoon Guards were captured. ■ _ , Major Fielden and Captain Ussher were severely wounded. Two Dragoons were killed, six wounded* and forty six captured, but were afterwards released. BOERS CAPTURED. Major Spens brought to Ermelo eleven prisoners and nineteen surrenders. Fourteen others surrendered on the Natal border. A CHANGE OF AIR. The Boers sentenced, to penal servitude outside Africa are going to the Seychelles Islands, off the east coast of Africa, north of Madagascar. A special gaol, being constructed for the accommodation of twelve hundred ordinary prisoners of war* will ha ready in Antigua by the middle of April. VALUE OF BALLOONS. Major Trollope, of the Army ballooning department, states the capture of General Cronje’s force at Paardeberg was due to a Cape boy seeing from a balloon and prevented the artillery firing upon a dummy laager when the Boers were hiding in the bed of the river. GERMAN PROTESTS. A German pastor and the Germans at Paarl, Cape Colony, have protested against the calumnies op the British. REBEL EXECUTED. The rebel Geldenhuis was executed at Middleburg on a charge of murdering natives. OUR NEXT TRANSPORT. The steamship Kent has arrived. She proceeds to New Zealand to embark the Ninth Contingent for South Africa.