ying on the war in
South Africa by "methods of barbarism."[227]

[Footnote 227: June 14th; 1901 (Holborn Restaurant, and
elsewhere later). "Whatever Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman may
think or say, the German nation may think or say."--The
_Vossische Zeitung._]

[Sidenote: Libels on the British troops.]

The weapon now adopted for the anti-British campaign was the
circulation through the Bond Press, Dutch and English, of accounts of
cruel or infamous acts alleged to have been committed by British
soldiers, and described with every detail calculated to arouse the
passionate resentment of the colonial Dutch. There is only one way in
which the reader can be brought to understand the wantonly false and
wholly disgraceful character of these libels. It is to place before
his eyes the literal translation of two examples, printed in Dutch in
_The Worcester Advertiser_ of November 23rd, 1900; that is to say, in
anticipation of the People's Congress, which was to be held less than
a fortnight later (December 6th) at the little town in the Western
Province so named. The article is headed: "Dreadful Murders
perpetrated on Farmers, Women, and Children, near Boshoff:

[Sidenote: Two examples.]

"... This unfortunate man [a Boer prisoner] left behind him his
dear wife and four children. One or two days after his departure
there came a couple of heroes in the house of the unfortunate
woman, locked the doors and set fire to the curtains. The woman,
awfully frightened by it, was in a cruel way handled by these
ruffians, and compelled to make known where the guns and
ammunition were hidden. The poor woman, surrounded by her dear
children (who were from time to time pushed back by these
soldiers), answered that she could swear before the holy God that
there was not a single gun or cartridge or anything of that sort
hidden on that farm. In the meantime the curtains were destroyed
by the smoke and flames to ashes. The house, at least, was not
attacked by the flames, but the low, mean lot put at the four
corners of the house a certain amount of dynamite, to destroy it
in this way.

"The heroic warrior and commander over a portion of the civilised
(?) British troops knocked with great force at the door of the
house--where still the poor wife and children were upon their
knees praying to the Heavenly Father fo