[Footnote 33: See the summary of the official returns given by Miss Emily Hobhouse on p. 328 of “The Brunt of the War.” The careful Boer compilation made after the war records the death of 26,370 women and children—more than four times the mortality among the Boer combatants. The full details are recorded in the archives at Pretoria, and it is to these that Miss Hobhouse refers in the pamphlet containing her speech at the unveiling of the National Monument at Bloemfontein on “Vrouwen-Dag,” 1913.] [Footnote 34: “The Transvaal Burgher Camps,” by Lieut.-Col. S. J. Thomson.] [Footnote 35: The marshy site of Merebank is compared by Miss Emily Hobhouse to that of the German camp at Wittenberg.] [Footnote 36: “‘Forage’ needs explanation,” writes Miss Hobhouse. “We requisitioned for forage, because, as there was no milk for the children, we were planning to buy some cows, _if_ we could secure forage. However, we failed.”] IV REPRISALS OF GOOD. For the information contained in this chapter I am greatly indebted to the Friends’ Emergency Committee. Most of it has already appeared in their leaflets and reports, and in articles in _The Friend_. The following is a reprint of a letter sent by the Bishop of Winchester to the _Times_. It appeared in the issue of September 29, 1916: GERMAN WORK FOR PRISONERS. Sir,—The following facts, if you can find space for them, will, I think, be of interest and encouragement amidst all the sorrow and misery of war. The word “reprisals” is often heard in diplomacy and in war; reprisals are attempted or suggested; or reprisals of cruelty are condemned, we rejoice to know, by the instinct and conscience of the nation. These are all reprisals of what is bad. Rarer, at least on the surface, are reprisals of good. But here is such a case. At the outbreak of the war members of the Society of Friends and others came together for the purpose of bringing help to those men and women of enemy nationality in this country upon whom the war had brought suffering. Their lot was often a pitiable one. The pull of contrary affections, the unkindness of former friends, the sudden loss of means of livelihood, the internment of the men, with its enforced idleness, were some of the troubles which would have produced despair in many cases had not the members of this “Emergency Committee” (169, St. Stephen’s House, Westminster)[37] come to the rescue. They have given material help to thousands of families, and, above all, brought the healing touch of human sympathy to the men in the camps and their wives and children (mostly British-born) left to struggle on alone outside.