opportunities of snapping up any unconsidered trifles in the way of bets which lay odds upon our being "out of the wood" in another month. Events are moving so slowly below that it does not seem as though we shall be relieved by the end of February. The relief column, which a month ago appeared almost daily in "Orders," is now no longer mentioned in polite society, although there be little reason to doubt that, at some very remote date, the troops may make their appearance here. The early part of November witnessed the first attempt of the Commissariat to control the stocks of provisions in the town. All persons holding stocks of Kaffir corn, meal, crushed meal, yellow mealies, and flour, were ordered to declare the quantities and price at which they would be willing to dispose of them to the authorities. Captain Ryan, the Commissariat officer, was an energetic and painstaking individual, whose aim was to prove his department a financial success, and so rigidly did he adhere to this resolve that the questions involved by the Commissariat became amongst the most important of the siege. Traders claimed that the economy of the situation gave them a siege profit, since, as the Government had not been shrewd enough to lay down stores, those who had done this at their own risk, and upon their own initiative, should be permitted, at least, to make a margin of profit in proportion to the prices which they could obtain for their goods. This contention, however, was not upheld by the Commissariat officer, who at once became the best hated man in Mafeking. Oddly enough, although the Government would not allow the merchants to reap the profit, they themselves, in virtue of the expense in connection with the issue of rations, were not above charging these expenses to prime cost, and so exorbitantly increasing themselves the retail price of the articles which they had taken over. What was perhaps the most objectionable feature in the findings of the Commissariat Department was that the merchant himself who disposed of his goods to the Government at a ruling which allowed but the profit incidental to the transaction of business in times of peace, was compelled to buy back, when he required goods of that particular variety, at the price which the Government had placed upon them. This, of course, seemed to the people unfair, and they were quite unable to obtain any satisfactory explanation of such procedure; satisfactory because the reasons vouchsafed assumed the right of the Government to a certain profit, denying, however, that rate in the same ratio of proportion to the individual. Among the chief obstacles against which Captain Ryan had to contend was the maintenance of the daily bread ration, since the supply of flour, of mealie meal, of oats, was not particularly great. There were many experiments made with the bread, but those which were most unsatisfactory failed because it had been found difficult to sift the husks from the oats