CONDENSED CABLEGRAMS.

Manawatu Herald, 25 February 1902, Page 2

CONDENSED CABLEGRAMS.

The Transvaal.

THE BOER LEADERS. An intercepted message from General Piet Viljoen to General Shalk Burger urged the latter to do something to counteract the spirit of surrender rife m the Eastern Transvaal. General Louis Botha and General Schalk Burger are trying to arrange a meeting. DEATH OF AN OFFICER. Colonel Evans, in command of a composite volunteer regimeht, was killed during a smart engagement at Vryheid, near the Natal border. RECENT ENGAGEMENTS. Lord Kitchener reports that Colonel Parks’s mounted force, with three hundred National Burgher Scouts, surprised a force of the enemy at Nooitgedacht, and captured _ 164, including Field-Cornet Du Toit and Lieutenant Viljoen. There were no British casualties. Commandant Hans Grobelaar, with 150 men, made repeated unsuccessful attempts to traverse Colonel Garrett’s lines. The Boers fled southwards towards the Frankfort-Vrede blockhouse line.

Major-General Knox and Colonel Barker have re-occupied Senekal, in the east ot Orange River Colony. Fifteen Boers have| been recaptured at Carolina in the Eastern Transvaal. Queenslanders attached to Colonel Plumer’s column captured twelve Boers at Wakerstroom on the 19th inst. Eleven surrendered at Balmoral. IMPRISONMENT FOR TREASON. Commandant Christian Botha, a cousin of Commandant General Louis Botha, and a prominent rebel who was captured during November, has been sentenced to ten year’s imprisonment and fined £SOO or an additional year’s imprisonment. THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS.

The report of the Women's Commission is a striking vindication of the methods employed in the concentration camps. It pays a high tribute to Lord Milner, and states that the mortality in the camps have been largely attributable to the insanitary condition of the country and causes within control of the refugees. It was impossible, the report adds, to disband the camps, and it would be highly impolitic to board out the refugees, whom if scattered, it would be impossible to feed. MISCELLANEOUS. The German pastor and other Germans at Paarl, in Cape Colony, have protested against the calumnies on British troops, A rebel named Geldenhuis has been executed at Middelburg, Cape Colony, on a charge of murdering natives. Boers who are sentenced to penal servitude outside Africa are going to the Seychelles, where a special gaol is being constructed. Accommodation for twelve hundred ordinary prisoners of war will be ready at Antigua, one of the British West India Islands, about the middle of April. Colonel Spens has brought to Ermelo, in the Eastern Transvaal, eleven prisoners and nineteen Boers who had surrendered. Fourteen others '"Krendered on the Natal border. Latest. DE WET AND STEYN. The Standard’s correspondent says that De Wet, with four hundred men, cut the wire entanglements west of Lindley on the tenth, losing eleven men. Then they returned to Liedenbergvler river, north of Reitz. He treats the Transvaalers who are disposed to surrender very roughly. The Free Staters are more irreconcilable. Ex-President Steyn’s influence with the Free Staters exceeds Da Wet’s. Steyn takes the greatest precaution against capture and is always accompanied by a body guard.