He therefore secretly conveyed it to the house of a friend, Mr. Isaac Haarhoff, whose wife carefully concealed it until the war was over, and then handed it to him again. He gave it to General Botha, who presented it to the Pretoria Museum, where it is now preserved and exhibited as a priceless national memento. Mr. Hattingh took the oath of neutrality with the other burghers in Pretoria and maintained his post in the Government Buildings for one month after the occupation of the capital. He was then asked either to take the oath of allegiance or resign from his post. He chose the latter alternative, although he had a wife and family to support and knew not how, in time of war, he would find the means to do so. After some deliberation he decided to begin a private bakery in a small building behind his house, and then began what proved to be a desperate struggle for existence. With Boer meal at L8 per bag and flour at L5 per hundred pounds, the unfortunate man tried to make a small profit on the tiny sixpenny loaves. There was no question of engaging hired help, and he was obliged to work almost day and night in order to make the business pay. Sometimes he had neither sleep nor rest for thirty hours at a stretch except while partaking of his frugal fare. When flour became even more scarce he had to augment his supply by mixing it with mealie meal, ground sweet-potatoes, and barley, until, in fact, only sufficient flour was used to keep the loaves from falling to pieces. By hard work he was not only able to pay his way, but assisted relatives and friends in a similar predicament. As one of the deacons of the church, he came into constant touch with the wives and families of fighting burghers, brought into town from their devastated homes, and it was a common sight to see a row of these unfortunates standing in his back-yard, holding dishes and buckets containing their rations of meal and flour, which they implored him to take in exchange for his ready-baked loaves, because there was a dearth of fuel. Although their rations consisted of what had perhaps once been flour, but was now a black and lumpy composition, evil-smelling and swarming with vermin, the good man never disappointed his petitioners. His fame as a philanthropist spread, and the rows of women in his back-yard increased. While engaged in serving them he listened to their tales of hardship and privation, watched their suffering faces, made mental notes of the harrowing details of each case. There was an epidemic of "black measles" going through the town at the time in the overcrowded quarters of the "Boer refugees," as they were called. Scarcely a mother appealed to him who had not lost one or more children, in many cases all she possessed, within a few weeks.