After all, the matter was, much cry about little wool, for of all the crimes committed by the Boers--a list of some of which will be found in the Appendix to this book--in only three cases were a proportion of the perpetrators produced and put through the form of trial. Those three were--the dastardly murder of Captain Elliot, who was shot by his Boer escort whilst crossing the Vaal river on parole; the murder of a man named Malcolm, who was kicked to death in his own house by Boers, who afterwards put a bullet through his head to make the job "look better;" and the murder of a doctor named Barber, who was shot by his escort on the border of the Free State. A few of the men concerned in the first two of these crimes were tried in Pretoria; and it was currently reported at that time, that in order to make their acquittal certain our Attorney-General received instructions not to exercise his right of challenging jurors on behalf of the Crown. Whether or not this is true I am not prepared to say, but I believe it is a fact that he did not exercise that right, though the counsel for the prisoners availed themselves of it freely, with the result that in Elliot's case, the jury was composed of eight Boers and one German, nine being the full South African jury. The necessary result followed; in both cases the prisoners were acquitted in the teeth of the evidence. Barber's murderers were tried in the Free State, and were, as might be expected, acquitted. Thus it will be seen that of all the perpetrators of murder and other crimes during the course of the war not one was brought to justice. The offence for which their victims died was, in nearly every case, that they had served, were serving, or were loyal to Her Majesty the Queen. In no single case has England exacted retribution for the murder of her servants and citizens; but nobody can read through the long list of these dastardly slaughters without feeling that they will not go unavenged. The innocent blood that has been shed on behalf of this country, and the tears of children and widows, now appeal to a higher tribunal than that of Mr. Gladstone's Government, and assuredly they will not appeal in vain. The next point of importance dealt with by the Commission was the question whether or no any territory should be severed from the Transvaal, and kept under English rule for the benefit of the native inhabitants. Lord Kimberley, acting under pressure put upon him by members of the Aborigines Protection Society, instructed the Commission to consider the advisability of severing the districts of Lydenburg and Zoutpansberg, and also a strip of territory bordering on Zululand and Swaziland, from the Transvaal, so as to place the inhabitants of the first two districts out of danger of maltreatment by the Boers, and to interpose a buffer between Zulus, and Swazis, and Boer aggression, and _vice versâ_.