ors--testified that Edgar did not strike a blow
at all and could not possibly have done so in the time. The fact,
however, upon which all witnesses agree is that as the police
burst open the door Constable Jones fired at Edgar and dropped him
dead in the arms of his wife, who was standing in the passage a
foot or so behind him. On the following morning, the policeman was
formally arrested on the charge of manslaughter and immediately
released upon his comrades' sureties of L200.

As gunpowder answers to the spark so the indignation of the Uitlander
community broke out. The State Attorney to whom the facts were
represented by the British Agent in Pretoria immediately ordered the
re-arrest of the policeman on the charge of murder. The feeling of
indignation was such among British subjects generally, but more
especially among Edgar's fellow-workmen, that it was decided to
present a petition to her Majesty praying for protection. British
subjects were invited to gather in the Market Square in order to
proceed in a body to the office of the British Vice-Consul and there
present the petition, but in order to avoid any breach of the Public
Meetings Act they were requested to avoid speech making and to
refrain in every way from any provocation to disorder. Some four or
five thousand persons gathered together. They listened to the reading
of the petition and marched in an orderly manner to the office of
the British Vice-Consul where the petition was read and accepted.

This was the first direct appeal to her Majesty made by British
subjects since the protests against the retrocession eighteen years
before. Not very many realized at the time the importance of the
change in procedure. There could be no "As you were" after the direct
appeal: either it would be accepted, in which event the case of the
Uitlanders would be in the hands of an advocate more powerful than
they had ever proved themselves to be, or it would be declined, a
course which would have been regarded as sounding the death-knell of
the Empire in South Africa. The time was one of the most intense
anxiety; for the future of the Uitlanders hung upon the turn of the
scale.

It was late one night when those who had been called to Pretoria to
receive the reply of her Majesty's Government returned to the Rand.
The real reply then was known only to three men; it was simply, point
blank refusal to accept the petition. There were no reasons and no
explanations. It was do