I will now sum up the reasons why the Boers lost their independence and country, and then throw in a few scraps which are worth recording. In the first place, the Boers lost because they made the fatal mistake of laying siege to Ladysmith, Kimberly and Mafeking. Had they driven ahead and take possession of the capitals of Natal and Cape Colony, all three of these depots of supplies and ammunition would have fallen into their hands without a shot being fired; and besides they would have received at least 75,000 recruits from the Colonies. Mafeking was absolutely of no importance to them. Of course, Baden-Powell was there and thousands of dum-dum bullets, and three or four years' supply of food, but all this in the beginning was not wanted. Baden-Powell would never have ventured a day's march from his prairie-dog-holes had there been Boers present, because he did not wish to take any chances of being captured. In the second place, the Boers lost because so many thousands of them surrendered voluntarily on the occupation of Bloemfontein and Pretoria. The Boer generals I hold entirely responsible for this. Had they met and talked to them and explained Roberts' proclamations, they would have prevented at least 35,000 men from surrendering. [Illustration: SOME OF THE IRISH BOYS JUST AFTER THE GENERAL SURRENDER Mike Halley, Sidney Blake, Jerry O'Leary, Dr. Worthington, Jack McGlew, Dick Hunt, Jim French, John Langtry, Pete O'Hare, Joe Kennedy, George Waldeck, Dave Norris, Colonel Blake, Lieutenant Malan, Joe Wade.] In the third place even after the voluntary surrender of so many thousands of men, had the three generals, Chris De Wet, de la Rey and Louis Botha, concentrated their forces and carried the war into Cape Colony, they would have won, because they would have received as many thousand recruits as they had lost in men who had voluntarily surrendered, and more, too. They could have taken complete possession of the English lines of communication, and this would have forced the English to abandon both the Free State and the Transvaal. But with a hammer and a spike one could not drive into a Boer general's head the real importance of his enemy's line of communication and the necessity of its destruction. In the fourth place, the Boers lost because the English Government in Washington, D.C., allied itself with the English Government in London, England, and allowed British officers to establish a military camp at Chalmette, New Orleans, for recruiting horses, mules and men for the British army in South Africa. This was a most damnable piece of business. More than 200,000 horses and mules were sent, and I don't know how many thousand men. So anxious was the English Government in Washington, D.C., to supply the British army in South Africa with horses and mules that to-day, May, 1903, there is a deficiency of them in the United States and our own cavalry regiments can not be mounted.