s sold L700
worth of goods before breakfast on a certain Saturday morning, in
which case he would perhaps reckon that on that particular date his
breakfast had been well earned. It probably meant in part a wholesale
army order; but even in that case it would be for cash, and not a case
of commandeering after the fashion of the Boers.

A crippled Scandinavian tailor told me that his constant charge,
whether to Colonels or Kaffirs, was two shillings an hour; and that he
thought his needle served him badly if it did not bring him in L6 a
week. About the same time a single-handed but nimble-fingered barber
claimed to have made L100 in one week out of the invading British; but
his victims declared that his price was a shilling for a shave and two
shillings for a clip. At those figures the seemingly impossible comes
to pass--if only customers are plentiful enough. Oh for a business in
Bloemfontein!

[Sidenote: _Republican Commandeering._]

The Republicans of South Africa have always been credited with an
ingrained objection to paying rates and taxes even in war time; but
they frankly recognise the reasonableness of governmental
commandeering, and apparently submit to it without a murmur;
especially when it hits most heavily the stranger within their gates.
Accordingly, the war-law of the Orange Free State authorises the
commandeering without payment of every available man, and of all
available material of whatsoever kind within thirty days of war being
declared. During those thirty days, therefore, the war-broom sweeps
with a most commendable thoroughness; and all the more so, because
after that date everything must be paid for at market values. Why pay,
if being a little "previous" will serve the same purpose?

A gentleman farmer whom it was my privilege to visit, some fifteen
miles out from Bloemfontein, told me he had been thus commandeered to
the extent of about L3100; the value of waggons, oxen, and produce, he
was compelled gratuitously to supply to his non-taxing government. A
specially prosperous store-keeper in the town was said to have had
L600 worth of goods taken from him in the same way; but then, of
course, he had the compensating comfort of feeling that he was not
being taxed! Even Republics cannot make war quite without cost; and by
this time some are beginning to discover that it is the most ruinously
expensive of all pursuits.

The Republican conscription was equally wide reaching; for every
capable m