WANTED, A MILLIONAIRE
_A number as sparkling as a string of jewels--Joke Portrait
Number Two._
A singular thing about THE FRIEND was that the readers could make sure
at a glance, each afternoon, what had been the spirits of the editors
earlier in the day. The issue of April 13th was positively frisky. We
were all in our gayest moods, and the principal page was made to
sparkle with most unlooked-for fun and flashes of wit.
Mr. Landon set out with his pen in search of an English millionaire
who would supply us daily with a budget of home news cabled direct to
us from London. Continually disappointed by the non-arrival of the
Reuter despatches, he urged that some wealthy man should pay to have a
long special cablegram sent to us daily, with a hint of all the
world's happenings. "To us," did I say? no; for, as Mr. Landon
expressed it, "All there is of THE FRIEND belongs to the Army. Its
existence began for the soldier, and its profits pass back to his
interests. If some of the kind-hearted people in England who are so
ready to put their hands in their pockets in the interests of 'The
Soldiers of the Queen,' only knew what the dearth of news from
England means to the men, they would at once supply the want." It is
too late now. That editorial never was copied in the English papers, I
suppose; but you millionaires who want to reach Heaven--and you others
who want to earn handles to put before your names--remember this in
the next war, and send news to your army wherever it is halted in the
field.
We found that the newsboys were charging two-pence for THE FRIEND, and
that many complaints were pouring in upon us; therefore, in the
blackest type, I rhymed to the readers--that being the most likely way
to impress them with the truth--in couplets such as this--
Who pays a penny for THE FRIEND,
Pays all he needs to gain his end.
and this--
Whoever pays us more than a penny,
Should guard his brains, if he has any.
Fancy me dropping into rhyme! But, as I have said, the "Tommies" all
did verse--or worse--and the example was epidemically contagious.
Perhaps in another month we should have all turned versifiers, and
produced copies of THE FRIEND wholly in rhyme.
In this number we published portrait No. 2 of our unique gallery,
selecting Lord Stanley as the subject. My son Lester had made a
cartoon in which the censor figured, and with which, for a very
peculiar reason, Lord Stanley was not pleased, but this second venture
of the family to do him justice in portraiture was eminently
successful. It was precisely the same picture as that which we called
a portrait of Mr. Burdett-Coutts on the previous day, but though Lord
Stanley knew the joke no one else saw it. One of the censor's friends
took from me a damp fresh copy of the paper, as I came out of the
works with an armful, and looking at the portrait remarked, "I say, I
did not know that Lord Stanley had an imperial--'goatee,' as you call
it--funny I never noticed that he wears one. Devilish good portrait;
clever of you to publish it." Mr. Burdett-Coutts was the only other
man beside Lord Stanley to understand what we were doing. He fathomed
the joke because we explained it to him, and I sincerely hope that he
appreciated the pure fun and harmless pleasantry of the spirit in
which it was conceived and carried out.
We had, from a coloured man, a letter complaining that we declared the
British policy to be "equal rights for all white men, without respect
of race or creed." To this he objected. He said that we were
advocating the policy of the Republics, and added, "I would like to
point out to you that when once your policy is known in this colony by
our people it will cause universal dissatisfaction." He was presumably
one of those natives, most numerous in the towns, who, by reason of
their intelligence and ambition, deserve most helpful, generous
consideration. But the "Universal dissatisfaction" which he threatened
would include a myriad negroes of the Karroo and the so-called "farms"
of the Boers. These form the mass of the natives; clothed in their
complexions and living in huts of twigs and matting. Equality with
white men can be offered to them by statute; but they cannot realise
it, and the world has seen mischief, unhappiness, and perplexing
political problems result from over-haste in this direction.
We did succeed in arousing an artist to defend his calling against the
boasts of the mechanical manipulation of the camera. Mr. W. B. Wollen,
R.I., was the champion of art, and he spoke for it with the ardour of
conviction, and the force of one who is right and cannot be gainsaid.
I cannot think why we omitted to call upon Mortimer Menpes, Esq., the
distinguished painter, then in Bloemfontein, to add his views to the
series of letters we hoped to secure upon this subject, the Camera
_v._ Art. Mr. Menpes had come to the war because, he said, nothing
else was talked or thought of in London, and an exhibition of
paintings of ordinary subjects, such as he gives with distinguished
success each year, would have fallen flat. He was very busy, very
popular, and very successful with the army. This issue (April 13)
contained a witty letter by him upon the postage stamp craze.
* * * * *
PRICE: PRICE:
ONE PENNY. THE FRIEND. ONE PENNY.
(_Edited by the War Correspondents with Lord Roberts' Force._)
BLOEMFONTEIN, GOOD FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 1900.
PROCLAMATION.
TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE DISTRICTS OF ALBERT, STEYNSBURG,
MOLTENO, WODEHOUSE, ALIWAL NORTH, BARKLY EAST AND COLESBERG.
On the recent retirement of the enemy to the north of the Orange
River, the rebels who had joined them in the Northern Districts of
Cape Colony were treated by Her Majesty's Government with great
leniency in being permitted, if not the ringleaders of disaffection,
to return to their farms on the condition of surrendering their arms
and of being liable to be called to account for their past conduct.
I now warn the inhabitants of the Northern Districts, and more
particularly those who were misguided enough to join or assist the
enemy, that, in the event of their committing any further act of
hostility against Her Majesty, they will be treated, as regards both
their persons and property, with the utmost rigour, and the extreme
penalties of Martial Law will be enforced against them.
ROBERTS, Field Marshal,
Commander-in-Chief, South Africa.
Army Headquarters, Bloemfontein, _April 9, 1900_.
* * * * *
OUR PORTRAIT GALLERY.
It is with great pleasure that we present to our readers to-day a
portrait of Lord Stanley, the present popular Press Censor with Lord
Roberts' Field Force in South Africa. The portrait is by W. B. Wollen,
R.I., and is a masterpiece. We like it, but we are surprised that the
censor should wear precisely such an antediluvian collar as we saw on
Mr. Burdett-Coutts in yesterday's view of our Portrait Gallery.
[Illustration: Lord Stanley.]
* * * * *
THE ABSENT-BODIED BURGHER.
BY A. B. PATTERSON.
_A Screaming Farce now being played daily with great success
in the Theatre of War near Bloemfontein._
CHARACTERS:
1. JACOBUS JOHANNES VAN DER MAUSER (The absent-bodied Burgher).
2. KATINKA VAN DER MAUSER (His Wife).
3. REGINALD TALBOT DE VERE-CROESUS (English Cavalry Officer).
_Scene_: A Farm in the Free State. Pony saddled at the door.
J. J. van der Mauser preparing to mount.
J. J. VAN DER MAUSER (_Centre of Stage_). Katinka! Katinka! Bring me
the old rifle that is in the barn among the sheep-skins. The old
muzzle-loading Boer rifle, with which my ancestor, the great
Ten-britches van der Mauser shot the lion in the days of the Great
Trek.
KATINKA: Nay, Jan! Pause and reflect! 'Twill blow thy head off. It has
not been fired these thirty years.
JAN: Nay, woman! I purpose not to fire it. I intend to hand it in to
the British--I only wish they'd try to let it off! Then will I return
speedily, provided with a pass, and go up into the laager to do a
little Rooinek shooting. While I am gone, Katinka, be not afraid. The
English will put a sentry on the farm so that not a blade of grass
shall be touched, not an onion taken from the ground. Be diligent, and
sell them all the butter you can.
KATINKA: The proclamation says the price of butter is to be
two-and-sixpence a pound!
JAN: Then don't take a penny less than three shillings and sixpence.
If you run short of milk, drive in the cows of our neighbour Smith,
who has fled to the English. And Katinka (_whispers tenderly_), if you
see the Rooineks out in the open, don't stand anywhere near them,
darling! You might get hit! You understand? Now, farewell!
(_Proceeds to pull on an extra pair of breeches, and so goes off to
the laager, while the band plays "My dear old Dutch."_)
[Interval of some days, during which the British encamp near the farm,
and Katinka sells them, at famine prices, every drop of milk and every
pound of butter that the cows will yield, and every egg that the hens
can be induced to lay.]
* * * * *
SCENE TWO.
The open veldt. Row of kopjes in the middle distance. Enter cavalry
patrol with Reginald Talbot Vere-Croesus at their head. (Band playing,
"Let 'em all come.")
FIRST SOLDIER: I thought I heard a rifle shot.
REGINALD TALBOT DE V.-C.: Nay. 'Twas but a soldier being shot for
stealing a bar of soap from an enemy's cottage. Serve the miscreant
right. Take open order, there. Walk, march!
_They ride round the stage with one eye on the kopjes and the other
admiring the fit of their breeches. Rifle shots are heard from the
kopjes. Band changes to, "You never know your Luck!" Heavy rattle of
musketry from kopjes. Patrol driven back and retire to pom-pom
accompaniment from the big drum_. R. T. de V.-C. _falls prone from his
charger_. KATINKA _rushes in (r.u.e.) weeping hysterically and throws
herself on his body_.
* * * * *
ENTER JACOBUS JOHANNES VAN DER MAUSER _(l.e.), and leans on his
rifle, staring gloomily at the scene._
* * * * *
JACOBUS: Ha! ha! So it has come to this! She secretly loves the young
English officer who reconnoitres kopjes with an eye-glass! (_Sticks
his chin out, claws the air and ambles about the stage a la Henry
Irving._) But I will be revenged! Ha! ha! I have it! I will go and
join the Johannesburg police! False woman, what sayest thou?
KATINKA (_hysterically_): I am innocent, Johannes. I am innocent!
(_Coils herself round the body of R. T. de V.-C. a la Sarah
Bernhardt._)
JACOBUS: Innocent! Then why weepest thou?
KATINKA (_rising suddenly_): Weep! I should think I _would_ weep.
Didn't he owe us three pound seventeen and sixpence for milk! How am I
to make the dairy pay if you persist in shooting my best customers?
(JACOBUS _embraces her_. REGINALD TALBOT DE VERE-CROESUS
_being, fortunately, shot exactly through the head with a
Mauser bullet, recovers at once and embraces her also, and
joins in a song-and-dance trio, "Be careful what you're
doing with the gun," and the curtain falls to the tune of,
"It mustn't occur again_.")
NOTE.--This farce will be continued till further orders.
A. B. P.
* * * * *
THE WAR ARTIST OF TO-DAY.
_To the Editors of_ THE FRIEND,--SIRS,--The present campaign has most
decidedly, as your correspondent in THE FRIEND of the 11th says,
commenced a new era in the history of illustrated journalism, but not
to the extent that he thinks.
The camera and the pencil can, and will, live together during a
campaign, but I venture to doubt if the camera will be able to do all
that its champion claims for it, and the war artist who knows his
business, which cannot be learnt in a single campaign, will come out
on top. For reproducing and putting before the public scenes
representing the strife and clamour of war, with its accompanying
noise and confusion, the man with the kodak cannot compete for one
single moment with the individual who is using the pencil.
How can he produce a picture that will show the public at large
anything like an accurate bird's-eye view of what a modern battle is
like? The brain of the camera cannot take in all that is going on. The
man with the pencil does so. A few lines to indicate the background
and the characteristics of it, and he is able to put before the world
what has taken place, that is if he knows and has seen what troops
have been doing.
In another paragraph there is a sentence which is a very unjust
reflection upon "the old-fashioned war artists, who draw on their
imagination." I should very much like to know who the old-fashioned
war artists can be who are referred to in this manner. The few men who
are still alive, and there never were many of them, are all men who
have seen a large amount of fighting, have sketched and worked under
fire, sent their work home often under enormous difficulties, and been
in very many tight places. Why should these men be referred to in this
way?
I suppose there has not been one single campaign in which the camera
has been in such frequent use; but is it possible, by this means, to
bring before us the various phases of a battle--a modern battle, I
mean, with its absence of smoke, enormous expanse of front and general
invisibility of both the attackers and defenders? Take a battery in
action. Can it show us the excitement and turmoil round the guns, will
it show us (unless it is a cinematograph) the trouble amongst the
teams when a shell drops near them? I think not. What it can do, and
does, is scenes which are more or less peaceful, such as camp views,
incidents in regimental life and also bits on the line of march, but
of an action--no! None of us artists are at variance with Mr. Scott in
other parts of his very able letter, and we cordially welcome the
camera artist, knowing very well that he has his field of work in
which we cannot hope to compete with him for a moment; but to put the
camera, which, after all, is only a very fine piece of mechanism, on a
par with a sketch is more than most people can put up with, especially
Yours very faithfully,
W. B. WOLLEN, R.I.
* * * * *
CHESTNUTTY--BUT GOOD.
_To the Editors of_ THE FRIEND,--SIRS,--Is this a chestnut? Johannes
Paulus Kruger sent a commissioner home to England to find out if there
were any more men left there. The commissioner wired from London to
say that there were 4,000,000 men and woman "knocking about the town,"
that there was no excitement, and that men were begging to be sent to
fight the Boers. Kruger wired back "Go North." The commissioner found
himself in Newcastle eventually and wired to Kruger, "For God's sake,
stop the war! England is bringing up men from hell, eight at a time,
in cages!"
He had seen a coal mine.
* * * * *
CIRCULATION, APRIL 11, 5,500.
The circulation of THE FRIEND is as large as that of all the
Bloemfontein papers combined.[18]
[Footnote 18: This was a transparent joke, as there was no other paper
in the town. But, joking apart, there never had been a newspaper in
that country or region with such a circulation as ours enjoyed; yet it
could have been twice as large had we employed our carts to circulate
it in the outlying camps.--J. R.]
* * * * *
DOTS OR NO DOTS.
_All about the New Stamp Issue._
BY MORTIMER MENPES.
How strange a thing it is that so small a matter as a
general taste for collecting stamps should, as it were,
elevate a man at a single bound into a position where his
slightest tact at discrimination in detecting the difference
of shades between two bits of paper of the same colour will
sway and determine the destinies of a horde of fanatical
collectors!
That a man should occupy so exalted a position was
accidentally brought to my notice after a return to
Bloemfontein from a run to the Cape, where I found the
Market Square, the club, the hotels and the street corners
grouped with people who appeared to be intensely interested
in the discussion of some all-important subject. Thinking
that some radical proclamation had been issued, I paused to
listen, but instead of legal phrase and technical form
greeting my ear, the only intelligible word which I could
detect in the buzz which emanated from the centre of the
group was "Dot."
I passed on to another group, where the same "dot" arrested
my attention; then to a third, which was also "dotty,"
until, feeble and bewildered, I helplessly wandered about on
the verge of an incurable "dottiness" myself.
Finally, I pulled myself together again and, blind to all
danger, plunged into a group of "dotters," grasped one of
them by the arm, and in reply to my appeals heard him hiss,
as he roughly shook me off, "Surcharged stamps, you fool,
misprinted, without dots." Then I understood. My curiosity
was stimulated, I soon learned the subtle differences which
add to or subtract value from the surcharged Free State
stamps. Finally I became the proud possessor of a dotless
one myself. That settled it; I became hopelessly "dotty"
myself, and to the end of my natural days will always
realise that affairs of State, literature, art, even money,
are secondary to the importance of obtaining "the entire
set," especially if they are from "the bottom row" and
"dotless." This mania has taken possession of the entire
army.
From Tommy to General, the last biscuit or a drink of
whisky, or a pass to be out after 8 p.m. can be extracted
after a dozen refusals by producing a dotless stamp.
Kruger could end this cruel war in an afternoon by simply
sending out a dozen men mounted on swift horses, wearing
white coats with the entire set without dots pasted on the
back. These scouts should be unarmed and should ride in
close to our lines and then turn round showing their backs.
The moment the army would see the set, they would make a
rush, and all the scouts would have to do would be to ride
fast enough and in different directions, and by nightfall
the Imperial forces would be hopelessly scattered, and lost
in the boundless veldt. Kruger's scouts would be perfectly
safe, for no one would dare to raise a rifle in their
direction. Such an act might bring down a set; but imagine
if you can the fate of the miscreant if one dotless stamp
should be punctured or if--horrible thought!--a chance
scattering of the lead should dot some of the precious bits
of paper!
In my inquiries during the first stage of this disease, I found that
Major O'Meara was the supreme authority on this subject. I found the
Major seated in a small room of the National Bank sorting out from a
huge collection the stamps which were to be surcharged. For three
hours I watched him, as with wonderful skill and discrimination he
picked out bits of paper which were obsolete and which an accidental
surcharging would have made of untold value, and set the whole world
of collectors into a palpitating hysteria of speculation, until
finally catalogued and bought by some multi-millionaire bent upon
ruining himself to appease his craze. That all the legally surcharged
stamps are carefully catalogued in the Major's busy brain will
doubtless surprise at some no distant date a few rascally speculators,
who, possessing obsolete issues, have surreptitiously surcharged them,
in the hope of creating a rarity to sell at fabulous prices. Leaving
the Major's presence, I realised that the last stage of dotlessphobia
had fastened itself on me, and, knowing that recovery is hopeless,
have abandoned myself to full indulgence, hoping to derive at least
some miserable satisfaction before the end. With this one reservation,
I am determined never to surrender to the universal stamp collector's
weakness of stealing. Others may walk uprightly through six days of
the week about their ordinary affairs and turn aside on Sunday
afternoon from the path of blindness to pilfer another collector's
treasure while his face is turned away, out of politeness, to sneeze.
But I; no, I shall never, never, no--I won't steal.