The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

HAJOR BRENNAN OF JOHANNES- BURG RETURNS. gâ€"q l'lnny Canadians In line Big Mlnlng Centre all Doing Wellâ€"The (‘nuadlani Associa- Ilunâ€"lsoer Army Equipment. Major F. H. Brennan, M. D., of Peterboro’, has just returned from South Africa, where he has lived for the last five years, having establishâ€" ed a medical practice and drug busi- ness at Johannesburg, There were in addition to himself, between 200 and 330 Canadians resident in that city, besides a considerable number of Americans who had been born in Canada, numbering in all about nine hundred. A Cara iin A.:so ia.ion w: s formed, of which Dr. Brennan was made president. \Vhen the Canadian Government or.- dorsed Great Britain’s action regard- ing the Transvaa‘ the association, true to its native "instinct, met and declared themselves in sympathy with Great Britain. This, not uzinaturally, invited the enmity of the Boer oiâ€" ficials, and Dr. Brennam, who had been chairman of the meeting, came in for very severe treatment at the hands of the Johannesburg press. This was the only exciting incident in the history of the club. MUNICIPAL .G O'VERNM ENT. (Although about one-half of the 102,- 000 population of Johannesburg con- sisted of Europeans, these Uitlaiidcrs had nothing to do with the govern- ment of the State. Municipal govern- ment made its first appearance in tha nneslfiurg last vear. i’revtloriai having previously directed al. the atâ€" fairs of the city. The Uitlanders found diversion in football, lacrosse, baseball, and other games. [The real cause of the war, says Dr. Brennam, was the belicfi of the Boers that they ha'l bezome strong (nough to turn out the British and set up a united Dutclh South Africa. _ Notwithstanding the size of 'the city, Dr. Bren-nan was the only prac- tising physician in Johannesburg, while another Canadian was the only dentist. The majority of the Cana- dians there were engaged in mining, and were all ’doing '_well. The school system of Johannesturg was exclusively Dutch, and there was no chance for the Britisher to give his children an English education. MILITARY OUTFIT. The construction of the Boer army and the condition of affairs before the war, are described by Dr. Bren- nan as follows; "CPU‘eparations for war had been gomg on all the time I lived in the country. Arms Were constantly be- ing imported and immense supplies of ammunition purchased. The recog- nized rifle at one time had been the Martini, but ever on the alert for supposed improvement, the Mauser had been substituted by the Govern- ment. The only regular militia was what: was known as the Staats Artil- l_ery, slattloned at Pre-toria, and it was a military body in every sense of the term. 'Enlistment was for three years, and the corps was offi- cered from the training schools of Holland. "For military purposes the (OJntI‘y College for the Blind. was divided into electoral districts, each being presided over by a com- mandant. These districts were sub- divided into wards, in charge of fie d corners. A'LL HAD TO FIGHT. "Every man in the country between the ages of 16 and 61" was liable for military service, and subject to the summons of the field cornet of his ward. Being summoned, he had to present himself equipped with rifle, 50 rounds of ammunition, a bone, and a food supply for a number, of days. The commandant assumed can-g trol of all the men in his district, while the whole force of the Country was under the Commandant-General, who was the only. official, besiies the President, elected by a lull vote of the country.‘ ‘ “To stimulate m'litary proiiiency, large supplies of ammunition were bought, and every encouragement w. 8 given to what would be known in Canada as target practice; and yet the Boers, contrary to imagination, did not prove to be exceptionally line. shots, at least, during the war. True , it is, that a volunteer corps had been formed in Johannesburg, tompoed of men of all nationalities, but this had been disbanded about a yiar previous to the. war. BOERS \VERE PREPARED. “For weeks before the commence- ment of hostilities (Oct. 11th) the com- mandoes had been preparing to cm s the border immediat-‘y upon the de mutation or9 war," sa.l Dr. Brennan. ‘ All the British resi fents ii. Tohann s- BABIAAUNG us. ' to leave the town,‘ the doetor himseli receiving a hint to get out or run the risk of being tried for treason, on account of the attitude‘of the Canadian Association. He proceeded to Durban, and cabled' to Canada, ap- plying for enlistment in the first Con- tingent. He received no- immediate reply, and so accepted a vacancy as ship surgeon on a transport going to India. On the first of February he was appointed medical superinten- dent of hospital ship No. 29, in which capacity he served until July, when he was transferred to one of 53 transports which were conveying Ger- mans and Holanders home to their native lands. Dr. Brennan reached London on the 22nd of August, and arrived in New York in the middle of September. PICTURE OF A BOER. The dostor’s de'cription of the Boer farmer is not very inviting. The latâ€" ter is simple in his tastes, and. hospit- able to every one who is not a Brit- isher. He is lazy, understands very little about work, has little regard for the truth, and abhors cleanliness. His greatest fault, however, was im- plicit belief in his leaders. It was the influence of the heelcrs and political clique in and around Pretoria which induced him to take up arms. These schemers told the farmer that if Great Britain won the war it would mean the loss of his farm. The record of the Canadian troops in South Afi‘iga, said the doctor, is a splendid one, and favorable rom- ments are heard wherever one goes. Major Brennan expects to’ re.u:n ‘0 Johannesburg, but he does not know whether or not his premises have been left intact. In the event of his house having been looted, he hopes for reimbursement at the hands of the British Government. _+_ PERSONAL ITEMS. For. the first time in many years Uncle Paul Kruger lately clebrated his birthday out of his own country. He was born at Rastenburg, Cape Colony, op October 10th, 1825, and :when only fourteen emigrated across the Vaal River and began his varied career. He has been twice married, the first Mrs. Kruger dying young and childless, and his family numbers ten sons and daughters. It is said that the cxâ€"President has as many grandchildren as the Queen. He be- longs to the Doppers, a sect of Dutch Protestants resembling the Quakers, Though only the ruler of 227,000 peo- ple, Prince Nicholas of Montenegro is an interesting sovereign. He is one of the most literary of European Roy- alties, having written several histou lical dramas, which have been produc- ed on the stage in his own‘ country and in St. Petershurg. The Prince has also composed poetry, chiefly of a warlike and patriotic type. He suc- ceeded his uncle, who was assassin- ated, when nineteen, married the same year, and has three sons and Six daughters, one being the present Queen of Italy. . One of the most extraordinary blind men in the world is Dr. F. G. Camp- bell, Principal of the Royal Normal He was born and lived all his early life in Amer- ‘ha rness. GLEAMS 0F HUMOR. his marriage." “Yes. Sports acar- triage and pair now." "Is that so?" "Yes, I saw- him pushing it in the punk yesterday." "’We’re going to live in 8. better neighborhood hereafter,” said Mrs. Uppis’h, the objectionable next-door woman. “Alli! So are We,” replied .Mrs. Pe‘ppery. “O! are you going to move, too i” “No. stay right here.” “How awfully greedy you are !" said one little girl to another. “You took. the biggest apple from' the has- lket just: as I was going to take it my- self." This is a baby. It is a girl baby, How sloppy its chin is! How red its eyes. \Vh‘at horrid contortions it makes with; its face. See how savâ€" agely it kicks. How like a demon it yells! Yet in a few short years some man will be half crazed wit-h wild suspense, worshipping the very air this being breathes, "Kneeling at her feet, and frantically begging for one word, one pressure of the (hand, even a look", which will give him (hope. “Do you consider him much of an actor ?" "\Vell, rather too much. It wouldn't hurt him to lose 60 or 70 pounds.” Typewriter Girlâ€"“\Vill you kindly hand me the mucilage'i Gushng B-oiz:ikâ€"kee‘per(â€"“Certainly; with all my heart.” Typewriter Girl â€"”No thanks; only the mucilago, please." Barber, abseintlyâ€"S‘hamrpoo, sir? Customer, wit-hi shining bald rp'a'te, No; â€"â€"shi'n-e! “I tell you whlat, there’s a darlk out- look for tihiat-youing man.” “\Vhy ’6" "He has a night job in a signal towâ€" er. Sheâ€"“Oh, my tooth aches dreadâ€" fully! I don’t see why we can’t be born without teeth." Heâ€""I think, my dear, that if you will look up some authority on that point, you will find that most of us are.” Guide, showing places of historic in- i teres'tâ€"“It was in this room that Wellington received this first commis- sion." Mr. Einsteinâ€""His first commission! Ish dot so i" Guideâ€"' “Yes, sir; it is a fact." Mr. Einstein â€""Vot persen‘tage of commission did I the get i” The work horse and the carriaigel horse stood side {by side “on the street. “I see you take your meals a la cart.” sniffed the latter, looikiing disdain- fully at the other's canvas feed bag. “Yes,” replied the equine toiler. “Don't you?" "Neig‘h, neigh, Pau- line," and the proud aristocratic mare rattled the silver chains upon her "I prefer mine stable d'oa’t.” Ethelâ€"“Pa, is it love that maikesll the world go round?” Pa, lured to a, "I hear Jackson’s doing well since \Ve're going to n bachelors' supper overnight, sadlyâ€" “No, dear, not always." “But isn't there a penalty if you bribe a custom house officer '2" asked his friend. "I’m not sure," said the returned traveler, who, of course, was speaking of his experience in Europe; “but I know there’s a penalty if you don't." __.¢___ ABOUT DUTIES. On board Her Majesty’s ships, as ica, and lost his sight by an accident. and 37301; 13, 0f OO'UJ‘SB. Permitted tot \Vihen a little boy, he had one eye 5 carry his stools from one ship to an- imjured by an acacia thorn, inflaleother, depot ship. somewhat out of date. and in their ation ensued, and soon the sight was gone forever. Dr. Campbell, however, who came to England in 1871, is an. Alpine climber, a cylcist, a soutler, and a horseman, and,’in business,cun give points and a beating'to most men. It has just been reported that Dr. Nansen, who celebrated his thirty- ninth birthday on October 10th, is to undertake a jomt expedition to the North Pole with the young Duke of bruzzi, who has recently broken Nansein’s recolrd. In 1895, Nansen got to within 260 miles of the Pole, while the Duke was 1333 miles off when he turned back. In recognition of the eminent services he has renl~ ered to the cause of scientific explor- ation, the British Government pre- sented Nansen with a fifty-volume set of the Challenger Reports. He is the first single individual to receive them, their cost running to several hundred pounds. ..___.____ LFOR'I‘Y MILES FOR A PENNY. The Russian Government, says Dag- la-d, Stock-helm, has decided upon the introduction of specially cheap fares upon the Trains-Siberian Railway, in order to encourage emigration to the country. A ticket from Russia to ’l‘ioboiisk only cost «is. 6d., and from 'l‘obolsk to any station whatever in Siberia this fare is only nine shillings. 'l‘hus the tri-ppsr own cover about 6000 miles for ama'tter of thirteen shill- :lDJg‘fi. --ers again from England. is well known, tobacco is duty free, I I even when But that other is a depot ships are place naval barraciks have been erectfi ed at various ports. This re-ar- rangement recently gave the Custom officials at Devonport the chance to pounce upon an unfortunate “handy- man” proceeding, by order, from his ship to the barracks. He was arâ€" rested 'by the police and charged with “having illegally unshipped 21b. lloz. of tobacco, the duty on which had not been paid." Fortunately, the mag- istrate recognized 'the absurdity of punishing a main ifor proceeding from his ship to whtttâ€"lby the Service re- gulationsâ€"was, in effect, another ship in commission; and refused to convict, but (the pol-ice took posses- sion of the tobacco. But peculiar as are the ways of the British Custom House, they are surpaSsed by many other similar inâ€" stitutions abroad. Thus the French. being desirous of shutting out Ger- man boys, imposed a very heavy duty on them, and, for a long time, could not understand how, notwithstanding, the Teutons appeared to be able still to undersell the home article. Ulti- mately it was discovered that the Germans had hit upon the device of. bringing the goods in in that they described as the raw stateâ€"that is to say, certain portions would pass the Customs from Holland, others from Italy and Switzerland, and. oth- The "raw dvouy mahea‘ial" thus passed by the unsus- pecting French Customs Depart- ment was then put together, and the trick was done. '. A funny story came from the Trans- vaal in the days when Mr. Kruger's officials collected the Customs duties there. An English actor in Pretoria applied for a parcel sent him! by post from this country, and containing typewritten manuscript, but was met by a demand (for dirty on it as feath- ers. He. expostulated, and Was shown the back of the address-label, on which was written "The Eiderdown Quilt," and he had to open the pack- age in order to convince 'the sceptical officials that the words referred to the title of a play, and were not liable to contribute to Mr. Kruger’s excihequer. - It may be noted that the Turkish Customs will not admit .goods stamped with. a crescent, or bearing the im- plrin't "Maikiers to Her Majesty," also that to consign port]: to any Moslem country is to court capital punish- ment. N_~â€".â€" RIAILROADS IN CHINA. People who lkanW the Chinese as well as any ouitsider canâ€"which is probably very superficially indeedâ€" tell us that much of the anti-foreign sentiment in China is provoked by the doings of railroad-builders. iAnces- torâ€"Worship is a part of this Chinese religion. When an engineer deseâ€" crates the sacred graves in order to lay out o. route, he rouses the popu- lace to fury. The first railway constructed in China was tel-even miles long and con- nected Shanghai with Wu-sung. An English company built it in! 1876. The Chinese government tore it up in 1877. Railroads seem to flourish best in northern China. Here they had their origin in the needs of the coalâ€" mines at Kaiping, east of Pokin, which have been operated since 1885. The English manager of the mines began with a little tramway to carry the coal eleven miles to the coast, thence to be conveyed by water to Tientsin. The trouble with this arâ€" rangement was that in winter, when business would have been most ac- tive, the river was frozen up. Finally, by cautious management, ~t he engineer put through a railway from the mines to 'l‘ien'tsin land Taiklu, and it was afterwards extended at the northeast of Kaipinig, to reach new collieries. -'.l‘he Chinese them- selves provided the capital. In 189.3 Li Hung Chang built an ex- tension ofI this road. In 1895 the gov- ernment carried it farther still. Now, as the Imperial Chinese Railway, it .rcaches from Peikiln to Kinâ€"chou, and including two branches, measl- ures about. four hundred miles. When the anti-foreign movement arose, another extension, running north- east from Kin-ohou a hundred miles, was under construction; and it was agreed that from Kin-cihouâ€"which is at the head of the Gulf of Liaotungâ€" the system should be connected with the Russian line which is to run from Por‘; Arthur to the Siberian railway, six hundred and fifty miles. At the southwest of the capital, most of the railroads are 'at the "pro- jected" stage. There is a line from Pekin to Paosting, eighty-eight miles long. Chinese capita'listgahave plan- ned to extend this to I-Ianikuu‘ on the Yangtze River. An American com- pany has a concession to build a rail- road from tHam’lna-u to Canton. lThusi the distance between Peikiin and Can- LlTTLE-KN OWN SIBERI}. .q An lnIcrcstlng Excerpt From 3 Recent Work by Baron do. Ball. Usually “dism- speaking of Siberia visions of snow-covered plains, ice- cdiad mountains and vast expanses of dreary waste arise in the mind’s eye. However true these visiioum may be of Siberia in general, there are vast fer- tile plains within the empire of the Nortih-, and a recently published book of Baron de Batz gives some informa- tion about them that may interest. There is no doubt the climate of Siberia is more rigorous than that of any other country in the same lati- tude. The northern shore is washed by the Arctic Ocean, whence the polar winds sweep unimpeded over the coun- try, ‘Wlhlllle the great central Asiatic rwmge slhiutis out Uhe warm southerly and southeast-erly breezes. Hence, the regions of Siberia enjoy amore inclement and less equable climate tihun places of corresponding latitude in. Europe or America, except the northern placlers im the interior of Canada, which however, profit in summer by certain warm-air cur- rents from Mexico and tihe Antilles. Siberia may be divided from rniortlh tio stoutih into three great zones. First. The [10er zone, or the zone of the “Toondea,” stretching from the polar seas to the polar circle, with outlines somewhat irregular, Veg- etation in this region is reduced to grasses, moss-es and lichens. The soil is perpetually frost bound. Second. The forest zone, extend- ing from the polar circle to the fif- tieth or the fiftyâ€"fifth degree of latitude, characterized by thick forests intersected by swamps. (Third, The cultivable Zionp, stretching south to the Chinese tron“ him. In this zone the summers are warm and genial. \Vheat, rye and oats can be grown, and stock raising may be carried on. Almost; all of the efforts of our colonists have been centrated here. This comprises at present the four governments of Tobohsrk, Tomsk, Yeni~ sei and Irkutsk, leaving out of con.- si-deration their most northerly dis- tricts and the mountainous portions of the government of Tomsk, Yenviisel and Irkutsk lying near the Chinese frontier. It ailiso invc'lu'hs the regions watered by the Amur and the Us- suriii, sparsely populated at present, but rapidly beimig settled by immigra- tion under the reduced rates on the Great Siberian Railroad, now com- piloted to Stretiinisk, east; of Lake Baikal. . I This zone contains approximately 54, 000,000 acres, “with [candy 5,380,000 acres under cultivation The system of cultivation is still, primitive. This land is first cleared, the trees are fell- ed, stumps are removed, or on the steppss the soil is merely plowed. The ground is next sown with wheat for two or three years consecutively. It is then- allowed to lie fallow, and sub- sequently is again somn with wheat. This rotation is mentioned until the ground shioiwts signs of exhaustion. The land is Uhiesu left completely un- cultiivated, aanid otlher fields are tilled. Ordinary sol-l, before being left be he follow for a long period, can be pbowed and sown for three or four years in succession; the best lack earth can be cultivated from twenty- time to thirty years. South of the Tobolisk prowlince there are field: which are kniow to have been culti- vated uniinterruptedly for one hun- dred years. ‘ roads thus avoiding the incubus of a for- soil, however, has compelled the farmâ€" ers to make use of manure, and on the northern borders of the cultivable zone of the Toborlsik provinces the fol- lowing rotation of crops has adopted; 1, rye; corn; ,3 fallow. The abundance of the crop varies uccording to the system of cultivaâ€" tiiion adopted, and it is to be noted that the stories told by early travelers of the prodigiousty fertile soil of Siberia relate only to exceptional years. At the present time, the anâ€" nual harvest of cereal crops in Siberia yields 160,000,000 poods, or 2,880,960 tons. The harvest consists approxiâ€" mately of; Conn and Oil'lfilS, 60 per cent; rye, 20 per cent; other cereals, 20 per cent. %¢___. I am here, gentlemen, explained the piuckpocket to his fellowâ€"prisoners, as a result of a momentof abstraction. And I, said- the. incendiary, because of an unfortunate habit of making light of things. , And I, chimed in the fioirger, on account of a simple desire to make a name for myself. ‘ And I, added the ‘wrglar, through nothing that taking advantage of an opening which offered in a large mer- cantile establishment in tmvn. matier be bridged. The statisticians agree that there are four thousand miles of telegraph, in China, but none of them dares ‘to say how many miles of railroad are in existence, nor does, any one attempt to keep track of tho concessions that have been granted in the last fem [years and that may or may not be utilized. Many Chinese statesmen have sided with the masses in object- ing to these concessions. \Vith the statesmen religious pre- judice is not so intense as with the common people. But they say that China's true policy is to build rail- slowly, with Chinese capital, been barlef or lton, twelve hundred miles, may ulti- l 2, oats, The gradual impoverishment of the eign debt. And they look forward with dread to the economic problems that will arise whenâ€"in a denselyi populated land, where every morscl of food has to be fought forâ€"railroads throw millions of coolies, carriers and junikmen out of work. ___¢___ THE FELINE CREW. Every large ocean liner carrying passengers has on board from six to ten cats, these being apportioned to And even, beyond this ,on most of various parts of the ship, as well as appearing on the vessel’s books for rations. AI -A_MA‘_“A‘A”-A-A-_- n _ AAA «O