It were well now, after briefly showing what Johannesburg and its population is, that the chief of the State and his rustic burghers, in whose hands lie the future of this remarkable city and its industry, should be presented to your readers, in order that they might realise the striking incongruity of first-class mechanical ingenuity, spirited enterprise, business sagacity, and tireless industry being subject to senile madness and boorish insensibility. That such a thing should be is most preposterous and contrary to all human precedent. For elsewhere, and since the dawn of civilisation, Intellect has always become Master, Captain and King over Ignorance, but at Johannesburg it is Asinine Ignorance which rules Intellect. Another reversal of human custom is seen in the submissiveness of Intellect to Ignorance, and though, being naturally sensitive under the whip and restless under the goad, it remonstrates sometimes, its remonstrance is in such a sweet mild way that the spectator can only smile and wonder. "OVERMASTERING SURPRISE" AT THE STATE OF THINGS ON THE RAND. Fitting words are wanting to describe my overmastering surprise at the state of things in the Transvaal; I am limited by space and time, so that I must let my pen race over three pages and trust largely to the intelligence of those who read the lines. I have a printed cutting before me of a discussion in the First Raad of the Boer Republic, during which the President, in the support of his views, stands up and says that Isaiah had been told by the Lord that Israel had been punished because the rulers of that people had not hearkened unto the voice of the poor. Another speaker of similar intelligence rose up to contend that the Lord had enjoined that the rich, not the rulers, should help the poor, and Isaiah had not been told that the poor were to be helped with other people's money. This construction of Scripture raised the President of the State to his feet again, and he reiterated the fact that the Lord had meant the rulers, whereupon another Senator interpolated the remark that some people were in the habit of shielding themselves behind the Bible with a view to saving their own pockets. NAILING IT WITH SCRIPTURE. Fancy a discussion of that kind taking place in the Legislative of a British Colony! What vexation and shame we should feel that a Colonial Government should be based on what Isaiah had conceived had been told to him respecting Jewish elders and rulers! We should undoubtedly feel that such a discussion was an outrage on common sense and good taste, and that the Colony had mistaken a parliamentary hall for a synagogue. But at Pretoria such discussions appear to be everyday incidents--the most commonplace arguments are supported by quotations from Isaiah or some other prophet. KRUGER'S CANT.