Mr. Kruger is a speech-maker of no mean ability. His addresses in the Volksraad are filled with good reasoning, homely similes, biblical quotations, and convincing argument. He speaks without preparation, indulges in no flights of oratory, but uses the simple, plain language that is easily understood by the burgher as well as the statesman. All his speeches are delivered in the Boer "taal," a dialect which bears the same relation to the Dutch language as "low" German does to "high" German. Generally the dialect is used by the Boers in speaking only, the pure Dutch being used in correspondence and official state papers. The President may be able to speak the English language, but if such is the case he succeeds admirably in allowing no one except his most trusted friends to hear him. Much investigation has failed to reveal any one in Pretoria who has ever heard him speak the English language, although reports have it that he speaks it fluently. He understands the language well, and any one who has ever held a conversation with him through an interpreter will recall that he occasionally forgets his assumed inability to understand English, and replies to a question before the interpreter has commenced to translate it. Mr. Kruger has been twice married. His first wife, a Miss Du Plessis, was the daughter of one of the early voortrekkers, and with the other women took part in many of the Boer wars against the natives. She died shortly after the founding of the republic, and left one son, who lived only a short time. Mr. Kruger several years afterward married his first wife’s niece, who is now the first lady of the land. Like almost all Boer women, she has a retiring disposition, and very rarely appears in public except at religious gatherings. The President rarely introduces her to his visitors, probably in obedience to her own desires, but she constantly entertains the wives and daughters of burghers who call on her husband. President and Madame Kruger have had sixteen children, seven of whom still live. One of his sons is the President’s private secretary, and a youth of decidedly modern ideas and tendencies. Another son is a private in the Pretoria police, a state military organization in which he takes great pride. A third occupies his father’s farm near Rustenberg. The other children are daughters, who are married to Boer farmers and business men. One of Kruger’s sons-in-law is Captain F. C. Eloff, who was taken prisoner by the Uitlanders during the raid, and who has since aroused the enmity of the English residents by freely expressing his opinion of them in public speeches. Captain Eloff is several times a millionaire, and lives in a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar mansion.