apart from that, men forced to surrender should neither be regarded nor treated as criminals, but as an honourable foe deserves.  In making these remarks we do not infer that our wounded were not well attended to by the enemy.  In most cases we believe they were.  We shall not comment on the treatment extended to our prisoners-of-war.  In the latter stage of the war we believe there was room for improvement, especially when natives were taken up in the British ranks.  These natives treated our men shamefully at times, and went even so far as to commit the most brutal murders.

Not only did the burghers treat their prisoners-of-war well, but the Boer officers under whose immediate control they were placed dealt, as a rule, very kindly and leniently with them.  Some of the more prominent Boer officers, such as General De Wet and others, have been accused occasionally of having ill-treated prisoners-of-war.  Most of these charges on examination proved groundless.

Mr. Erskine Childers, in a letter to the Times, expressed himself on this matter as follows:—­

“It is time that a word was spoken in opposition to the idea that General C. De Wet is a man of brutal and dishonourable character.  Those who, like myself, have served in South Africa, fought against him, and frequently met men who have been prisoners under him, look, I believe, with shame and indignation on the attempts made to advertise and magnify such incidents as the alleged flogging and shooting of peace envoys, so as to blacken the character of a man who, throughout the war, held a reputation with our troops in the field of being not only a gallant soldier, but a humane and honourable gentleman.  We may deplore the desperate tenacity of his resistance.  Our duty is to overcome it by smashing him in the field.  We gain nothing but only lose our self-respect by slandering him.

“His whole career gives the lie to such aspersions.  It was in May of last year, ten months ago, that he first gained prominence.  Since then he has fought scores of engagements with us, some successful, some unsuccessful, never with a suspicion of dishonourable conduct.  He has had at one time or another some thousands of our men in his hands as prisoners-of-war.  Many of them I have myself met.  At second or third hand I have heard of the experiences of many others.  I have never heard a word against him.  When men suffered hardships they always agreed that they could not have been helped.  But, on the other hand, I have heard many stories showing exceptional personal kindness in him over and above the reasonable degree of humanity which is expected in the treatment of prisoners-of-war.

“I believe this view of him is universal among our troops in South Africa.  It makes my blood boil to hear such a man called a brigand and a brute by civilian writers at home, who take as a text the reports of these solitary incidents, incomplete and one-sided as they are, and ignore—­if, indeed, they know of it—­the mass of testimony in his favour.”

This testimony about De Wet, as well as other Boer officers, has been substantiated by scores of letters from other officers and privates.