When war became imminent the big mining houses considered it wiser to close their offices and mines, and for these unfortunate beings, deprived of their means of existence, the position became truly a lamentable one.  They could not very well remain where they were, because the Burghers, who had never taken kindly to them, made no secret of their hostility, and gave them to understand very clearly that as soon as war had been declared they would simply turn them out without warning and confiscate their property.  Prudence advised no delay, and the consequence was that, beginning with the month of August, and, indeed, the very first days which followed upon the failure of the Bloemfontein Conference, a stream of people from the Transvaal began migrating toward Cape Colony, which was supposed to be the place where their sufferings would find a measure of relief that they vainly imagined would prove adequate to their needs.  At the Cape, strangely enough, no one had ever given a thought to the possibility of such a thing happening.  In consequence, the public were surprised by this persisting stream of humanity which was being poured into the Colony; the authorities, too, began to feel a despair as to what could be done.  It is no exaggeration to say that for months many hundreds of people arrived daily from the north, and that so long as communications were kept open they continued to do so.

At first the refugees inundated the lodging-houses in Cape Town, but these soon being full to overflowing, some other means had to be devised to house and feed them.  Committees were formed, with whom the Government officials in the Colony worked with great zeal and considerable success toward alleviating the misery with which they found themselves confronted in such an unexpected manner.  The Municipal Council, the various religious communities, the Medical men—­one and all applied themselves to relief measures, even though they could not comprehend the reason of the blind rush to the Cape.  Nor, in the main, could the refugees explain more lucidly than the one phrase which could, be heard on all sides, no matter what might have been the social position:  “We had to go away because we did not feel safe on the Rand.”  In many cases it would have been far nearer to the truth to say that they had to go because they could no longer lead the happy-go-lucky existence they had been used to.

The most to be pitied among these people were most certainly the Polish Jews, who originally had been expelled from Russia, and had come to seek their fortunes at Johannesburg.  They had absolutely no one to whom they could apply, and, what was sadder still, no claim on anyone; on the English Government least of all.  One could see them huddling together on the platform of Cape Town railway station, surrounded by bundles of rags which constituted the whole of their earthly belongings, not knowing at all what to do, or where to go to.  Of course they were looked after, because English charity has never stopped before differences of race and creed, but still it was impossible to deny that their constantly increasing number added considerably to the difficulties of the situation.