In this number mine was the leader entitled, "Do we Spare the Rod too Much?" A friendly visitor, whose signature "L. D.-J." unfortunately fails to recall his full name to my mind, wrote a very interesting sketch called "Towards War," which shows with fidelity to the truth how the mere process of going to war prepares one for the war itself. Mr. Landon wrote the first true account most of us saw or heard of the mishap at Karree Siding, where four of our officers were shot, on March 23, while riding over the country on a search for forage. Lieut. Lygon, who was one of the killed, was an intimate and beloved friend of Mr. Landon, who mourned him deeply and most lovingly looked after his burial and the proper marking of his grave. Death had come too close to all of us far too often, but never quite so close to any one of us as in this instance. Mr. Gwynne's thoughtful essays on the revolutionised science of war produced a first reply in this number, from an officer competent to discuss the subject. General Sir Henry Colvile wrote with much good humour twitting us for the blundering of our compositors, who had made a botch of the double acrostic he had so kindly sent us some days before. The fact that we were as much to blame as the compositors he managed, with extremely clever wording, to make us feel, though he did not say so. Those compositors!--were ever men so badly served as we were by them? They doubled our work, and though we corrected every error they made they often spoiled our efforts at the last by failing to carry out our corrections. They were so ingenious as to spell struggle "strxxlg," and then to insist that it should appear so in THE FRIEND. They invented the new rank of "branch colonel" to take the place of brigadier-general or lance-corporal, I cannot remember which. I used to think they made this trouble on purpose, for I knew that some were Dutch and all had been with the Boers before we came. And when secret pro-Boer circulars and incentives to disorder were found to have been printed in the town, I had a sneaking suspicion that I could guess who were the printers. We cut the Gordian knot of one of our troubles in this number by reducing the price of THE FRIEND to one penny to men of all ranks alike. * * * * * THE FRIEND. (_Edited by the War Correspondents with Lord Roberts' Force._) BLOEMFONTEIN, TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 1900. BY THE EDITORS. _To Correspondents._--Please do not write on both sides of your letter sheets when you contribute to THE FRIEND. It's all right to take a kopje on both sides, but you should not send it in on both sides. Some of the Editors are sufficiently profane already. * * * * * CONCERNING ACROSTICS. BY MAJOR-GENERAL SIR H. E. COLVILE. SIR,--"We don't hexpect hart and we don't hexpect hacting, but yer might jine yer flats."