Johannesburg should attack Pretoria; all point to the conclusion that it was not all cut and dried.  With a singular unanimity, the Boers and their friends and the majority of the Uitlanders in the Transvaal support this view; but there are on record certain facts which are not to be ignored.  Apart altogether from the hearsay evidence of telegraphists and Boer officials in different parts of the country, who state that they were under orders from Government to remain at their posts day and night—­that is to say to sleep in their offices—­a fortnight before the Jameson raid took place, a significant piece of evidence is that supplied by the Transvaal Consul in London, Mr. Montagu White, who in a letter to the London Press stated that on December 16 he received information as to the plot against the independence of the Republic, and that he on that date cabled fully to President Kruger warning him of what was in contemplation, and that the President took the necessary precautions.  Now, on December 14 it was announced in Pretoria that the President, being greatly in need of a rest and change, was about to undertake a tour through the country to visit his faithful burghers.  Perusal of the newspapers of the time shows that among the Uitlanders no significance was attached to this visit.  Indeed, the Uitlander press agreed that it had become painfully evident that His Honour required a change in order to restore his nervous system.  As nothing can better represent the opinions of the time than the current comments of the Press, the following extracts from the Johannesburg Star are given: 

In short, His Honour is developing an ungovernable irritability and a tendency to choleric obsessions, when the word ‘Uitlander’ is barely mentioned in his presence, that are causing the greatest concern to those around him.  Only on some such grounds are explicable the raging exclamations he is reported to have permitted himself to lately use towards Johannesburg and the cause of reform upon which it is so earnestly engaged.  That His Honour should have been generally credited with indulging in unconventional vernacular terms concerning the pronouncedly loyal and hearty reception accorded to him on his visit to the Rand Agricultural Show, seems to argue a lapse into the habits of his youngest days, which has a direct significance in the case of ordinary individuals, and is known by a very familiar name.  That he should tragically declare that only across his bleeding corpse will the Uitlander ever come into his own, is merely the extravagant and regrettable melodrama of an overheated mind.  The general desire is quite averse to encountering any stepping-stones of that kind, and most of all averse to Mr. Kruger’s taking any such place.  Our quarrel is with principles and systems, and never yet has a note of personal vengeance been sounded whilst we have endeavoured to compass their destruction.  It is quite obvious that a little relaxation from the cares of State, or reversion to more primitive conditions, a freer communion with Nature—­viewed from an ox-waggon—­are eminently desirable to restore His Honour’s shattered nerves.—­December 14, 1895.