THE FOURTH CONTINGENT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 45, 24 February 1900, Page 4

THE FOURTH CONTINGENT.

TABANAKI TO SEND FOUB MEN. The Patriotic Committee met on V Friday to consider the question of ~< Bending Taranaki men with the Fourth Contingent. It was decided that as there were net sufficient funds in hand to folly equip a section, four men should represent the district, the condition being that each man shall find his own hone, which shall be passed by the veterinary surgeon. The Wanganui vet. will be asked to visit New Plymouth for that purpose. A large number of applications have already been received for enrolment. Wellington, February 23. Lieut. Boss, thrice carbine champion of New Zealand, has applied for a commission with the next contingent from Hawke's Bay. Dr. Percival, of Wellington, has offered his services to the Wellington contingent.

Dunbdin, February 23,

This was another busy day at the Fourth Contingent camp. Biding tests were continued, and four men rejected. Six men in camp were also rejected as being under age. Three squadrons were put through shooting tests in the afternoon. Mounted drill was carried out on the beach under Captain Harvey. The men are learning their drill rapidly, and most of the movements to-day were done at a gallop.

Nelson, February 23. Eight men were selected to-night for the Fourth Contingent. They leave x ~Xfor Wellington on Wednesday.

THETPROPOSED RESERVE FORCE.

Wellington, February 23.

The following circular by Colonel Pole-Penton, referred to in an Auckland telegram yesterday, has been sect to each district:—" Please collect 150 men from your district to form a reserve for service in South Africa; age, from 21 to 40; not less than sft. 6in., with proportional chest measurement; weight, not over 12st. 71bs.; must be first-class riders and good shots, and unmarried. Pay, "two shillings a day until embarked; then full rates. Rations, equipments, etc., will be found by the Government. Preference is to be given to men of mounted volunteer corps. In all, five hundred men will be concentrated in Wellington for equipping and training. Men who could no j be included in the Third Contingent, now in camp, can be enrolled for this reserve, if suitable."

THE LATE TROOPER JAMES McINTOSH PATTERSOK, NEW ZEALAND IST CONTINGENT.

In. order to ascertain whether our *~ ' eurmise that the Trooper James Patterson whose death from enteric fever at Bondesboch Hospital, South Africa, was reported in yesterday's cables, was Mr. James Mcintosh Patterson, of TTniajini, Egmont Road, was correct, we wired on Friday to the Defence Department, asking whether this was » go, and in reply received the following • telegram from Sir Arthur Douglas : "Nkws, New Plymouth. Yep, of

enteric fever at Rondesbosch on 19tb ~> February."—A. P. Douglas, Underfor Defence. [Rondesboch is one of the principal suburbs of Oapetown.] - We understand that (he late Mr. Patterson was for some years a soldier in the Gordon Highlanders, after retiring from which he was in the service of a Scotch nobleman as gamekeeper. -Some ten years ago Mr. Patteraon came out to New Zealand with Lord Onslow, in whose service he was "* at the time. On leaving Lord Onslow's employ some eight years ago, Mr. Patterson took up a farm at Egmont Road, where he resided until joining the First Contingent of volunteers for South Africa. Mr. Pattereon's house, being the last on the Egmont Road, was a favourite halting place for parties visiting the mountain, and in this and other ways, and especially owing to the fact that he was a famous player on the bagpipes, be became well-known and highly popular throughout the district. Being an old soldier, and having lost two brothers in the Majuba Hill disaster, Mr. Patterson was one of the first to volunteer as a member of the New Zealand Contingent, and, being accepted, sailed with the corps ts the Cape. Although he did not loso his life in battle he laid it down for his country £? truly as the brave men who were slain by the fee, and Taranaki claims him as hero as much as if he had been kid low by Boer bullet instead of by disease. The late Trooper Patterson leaves a widow and young family, to whom deep sympathy ia. extended in their sad bereavement. By the courtesy of Mr. P. S. "Whitcombe, secretary of the Education Board, we are able to publish below a characteristic letter written by Mr. Patterson from Port Elizabeth, and which will be read with mournful interest by a wide circle of friends and sympathisers: — Port Elizabeth, Cape Colony, 21st November, 1899. To the Chairman Taranaki Board of Education. Sib, —As Chairman of the Kaiauai School Committee, I wish to let you know that it will be impossible for me

to attend to my duties as Chairman to e the above Committee for some months to come; therefore, I will forward my resignation to tho secretary of the Committee and leive thtm unfettered. X ought to have done this before I left, but my service in the contingent was not accepted early enough, and when accepted I was kept very busy indeed. On account of my being an old soldier I had my full share % of work until things were got shipshape. Sir, before I resign, I will ask a favour of your Board. I made a promise to the Board some time ago (before a school was given to the settlers at Kaiauai), that 1 would give 200 trees and shrubs and see tbem planted; 100 have been set in the school grounds; 100 more I will plant „ ktiT, if I live long enough and have Jr health to work. Please makean effort to see the plantation fenced in, as the horses that may be with the school children will spoil the plants, I hope you will

j not Bllow the trees to be removed or cut down until thty are becoming a source of danger to the fences or school buildings. My committee was getting up a concert to defray the expenses of fencing, but I sailed from Wellington on the date this was to have been held. I do not know whether or not the concert came off, or how much the committee will have on hand to do the fencing with, and I will ask your Board to try and give a little to the committee in order to get the work done. I hope you will excuse pencil work. [The letter is written in pencil.] We had a nice voyage, but very hard drill all the way across. The bugle is sounding " Out Lights!" I must close, 1 with best wishes and a happy Christmas to all members of your Board.—J, M. Patterson, Trooper 31, 1 Division, 1 Company, New Zealand Contingent, Africa. COMMANDANT ORONJE. A PBO-BOER VIEW OF THE MAN. Mr. Douglas Story, who until lately was editor of a pro-Boer paper, contributes to the DaMy Mail the following article on Commandant Cronje, whose forces are now held up at Koodoosraad by the British:— I see Cronje now as I saw him standing by the graveside of the Republic's " Fighting General," Nicolaas Smit, in the silent God's-acre above Pretoria. It was a heavy South African evening, with the sun just sinking, hot and dusty, to the westward, whereabout Doornkop lies. The slow wail of Chopin's "Dead March" had ceased, and the leaders of the Boer people gathered round the narrow, brick-lined pit where lay the last of him who won Majuba. On whom haa the warrior's mantle ; fallea ? Without doubt, the chosen of , the burghers is Cronje. Joubert they , admire as a tactician and an organiser, ■ but to them he is ever " Slim Piet," the man with heterodox views of pro- \ gressioa and political development, the man who opposes Kruger and has held i parley with the stranger within the ! gates. 1

Cronje—rough, burly, asking no man's friendship, and gainiog that of few, with steely grey eyes peering out from below shaggy eyebrows-is the man the burghers trust when the commandos are out. He has been with them at Bronkhorst Spruit and AT MAJUBA HILL. He saved the Republic at Doornbsp, and no man ever yet suspected him of traffic with the Uitlanders.

By force of a popular vote that never required a poll, Oronje has been, since the day of Smit's deatb, tacitly acknowledged the People's General of the Transvaal.

Wily and farseeing, as is Piet Joubert, no man of them all can handle troops in the field as Oronje. He has the eye of a hawk for position, the nose of a jackal for signs of weakness in the enemy. His manoeuvring of Jameson was that of an Oliver Cromwell.

Cronje was commandant at Potchefstroom, 70 miles to the south of Krugersdorp, when Jameson crossed the border. He co-operated with Malan and Potgieter, but the conduct of the fight lay with the cool head of OroDje. I rode out to the scene of Jameson's defeat some time after the battle, and realised how much of the hunter there is still in tho Boer fightiegman. No mere soldier would have horded his enemy eo patiently into a position n6 did Oronje into the fatal corral at Doornkop All through the night succeeding Jameson's attack on Erugeradorp, Cronje kept warily hustling his enemy into the placa of deatb, The bravp, focdlo-s troopers, heavy with sleep, Were driven

LIKE SHEEP INTO A SHAMBLES. When the morning broke, to the right, to the left, and in front of thorn Boer marksmen kept their rifles trailed upon the raiders. Escape there was none. But the battle was won in the Digbt hours, while Jameson was helplessly blundering on in front of his remorseless enemy. Cronje could afford to wait until the troopers cime within a hundred yards before he gave the mercy blow. I And yet there was a limo in the' 'darkness when Jameson almost escaped from his hunters. Cionj 's son was badly wounded in the early skirmish. For the moment the father's instinct overcame the general's discretion. He bore his boy back to Krugersdorp, and left him with Dr. Viljoen there. It was a father's act, and one strangely unlike the rough farmer's exterior of the man who mastered Sir John Willoughby. The lesson learned that pitiful night dictated Cronjo's courtoous assurance to the defender of Mafeking that the Red Cross was safe from him and his.

While Cronje was gone somebody blundered ; and the troopers in their blindness very nearly wandered round the flank of the beaters into safety. But it was not to be, and long ere daylight Cronje was back to repair damage and AERANOB HIS PIHAL BATTOE, That drizzly, misty night made Croojea wargod among the Boers. And yet these stolid veldtmen give little demonstration of their admiration. The Boers are not a grateful nation as the Americans with their Dewey or we British with our Kitchener are grateful. Days after the battle I saw Cronje riding heavily down the Eerkstraat in Pretoria, a heavy, big-boned peasant, upon a shaggy, trippling pony. No man touched his hat to him; few accosted him.

And yet it is significant that Oronjc, among the Boers, is always known as' " Commandant " Cronje. There is a rude dignity about tho man that compels so much of respect. Other men are known by their Christian names—"Slim Pief Jouberf, "Oora Christiaon" Joubert, "Oom Jan" Hofmeyr but rarely nowadays, "Oom Paul" Kruger. In a place apart stands "Commandant" Cronjs. So far as my memory carries, Cronje was not even specifically thanked by the Volksraad for his great services to the State at Doornkop. He was a burgher ; it was his duty to repel the invader; he repelled him, and there the matter rested.

THEY WOULD HAVE CENSURED HIJI had he failed; they refrained from comment when he succeeded, I Crooje, riding back to Pretoria, had

no guard of honour to receive him, r>u groat civic function to fete him, no sword of honour to adorn him. He" was plain Peasant Oronje, returning, heavy-hearted, from his wounded son's pallet in Krugersdorp hospital, some-, what weary in the bones from those long hours in the steaming saddle, nowise elated, nowise altered from his everyday demeanour. Since then Oronje has received a seat in the Executive Oouncil, and is now a personage with a substantial State salary; but the man is in no way changed. He was thought to be a supporter of the President when he joined the Executive Council, but neither Kruger nor Joubert has found him amenable. He is not of the race that makes the party man. He is as individual as Kruger, strong in the faith of his own generalship as Joubert. A soldier and a leader of men, he somewhat despises politics. For him the capture of prisoners is everything; their disposal a matter for the stay-at-homes,

In the early days of 1898 it was thought CroDJe might opposo Kruger for the Presidency. But his ambitions lie elsewhere. To be immured in Pretoria were to Oronje an imprisonment. He is a man of the veldt, born there, and asking no better fate than to die there, rifle in hand, as becomes a hunter and a soldier.