The majority of the people of the United States have accepted the newspaper celebration of President Kruger as a wonder in courage, diplomacy, integrity, piety, and all that makes up excellent manhood. The record of his duplicity, cunning, evasiveness and crooked selfishness is practically excluded from those journals, and even headlines that approximate to the truth are confined to a few papers that care for international commentary. It is supposed that our local market for intelligence desires a constant flavor of Boerdom. [Sidenote: Fair Summaries of Both Sides] The collection of historical matter--"The Transvaal from Within"--is in terms and tone very persuasive that it has unusual merit as truthful--giving from the records fair summaries of both sides of disputed questions, whether they are commercial, political, racial or personal. The author is Mr. J. P. Fitzpatrick, the publisher Mr. William Heineman, London, and the work is brought well up to date. It opens with a note that shows a spirit of consideration for all that is admirable; and it is the desire of the author of this book that it should apply thoroughly. We quote: "It has been found impossible to avoid in this book more or less pointed reference to certain nationalities in certain connections; for instance, such expressions as 'the Boers,' 'the Cape Dutch,' 'the Hollanders,' 'the Germans,' are used. The writer desires to say once and for all that unless the contrary is obviously and deliberately indicated, the distinctions between nationalities are intended in the political sense only and not in the racial sense, and if by mischance there should be found something in these pages which seems offensive, he begs the more indulgent interpretation on the ground of a very earnest desire to remove and not to accentuate race distinctions." [Illustration: A HUMANE AND DARING DEED. Lieutenant L. R. Pomeroy, when retiring to shelter at the battle of Ladysmith, November 3, 1890, saw a wounded and dismounted trooper needing help; and regardless of bullets and shells flying around, assisted his comrade to mount behind him and carried him to safety. Such are the deeds that win the _Victoria Cross_.] [Illustration: BATTLE OF LADYSMITH--TERRIBLE DASH OF HORSE ARTILLERY RUSHING TO TAKE UP A NEW POSITION] The first chapter of the inside history opens with this searching paragraph: "When, before resorting to extreme measures to obtain what the Uitlanders deemed to be their bare rights, the final appeal or declaration was made on Boxing Day, 1895, in the form of the manifesto published by the Chairman of the National Union, President Kruger, after an attentive consideration of the document as translated to him, remarked: 'Their rights. Yes, they'll get them--over my dead body!' Volumes of explanation could not better illustrate the Boer attitude and policy towards the English-speaking immigrants." [Sidenote: A Few Facts of History]