2. In addition to the payment of the damage above mentioned, a penalty depending upon the circumstances of each case, but which in no event will be less than a sum of 2s. 6d. per morgen on the area of each farm, will be levied and recovered from each burgher of the district in which the damage is done, in respect of the land owned or occupied by him in such district. Furthermore, all receipts for goods requisitioned in such district on behalf of the military authorities will be cancelled, and no payment whatsoever will be made in respect of the same. 3. As a further precautionary measure, the Director of Military Railways has been authorized to order that one or more of the residents, who will be selected by him from each district, shall from time to time personally accompany the trains while travelling through their district. 4. The houses and farms in the vicinity of the place where the damage is done will be destroyed, and the residents of the neighborhood dealt with under martial law. 5. The military authorities will render every facility to the principal residents to enable them to communicate the purport of this proclamation to the other residents in their district, so that all persons may become fully cognizant of the responsibility resting upon them. (Signed) ROBERTS, F. M., Commander-in-Chief, South Africa. I say these proclamations were cruel, because they struck the innocent for the doings of the guilty. War is essentially merciless, but these orders made it unnecessarily infernal. The reason given for the burning of farms near where the line was cut was that such work could not have been done without the knowledge of those who lived in the vicinity; but that reason was wholly untrue, for in some cases farms were burned and destroyed several miles away from the railroad--in fact, not even in sight. How could it be expected that the occupants of a farm several miles away could know what was going on while they slept? I know of cases where the same damage has been done to the railroad under the very noses of British sentries put there to prevent it, and yet Lord Roberts assumed that the occupants of the farmhouses must know all that went on for miles about. On the majority of the farms there were only women. They and hundreds of other innocent people who had no hand in the railway destruction, although their hearts were undoubtedly with the cause, were made homeless by the torch. [Illustration: The Guards and mounted infantry at Pretoria Station.]