A week later, the General, learning from the Reports of his Staff that he was a Heaven-born Strategist, diligently read a Book and gave Battle upon the lines therein laid down. After this he was never seen to smile but frequently heard to murmur: "If I had only trusted my bally Luck instead of a bally Book, I should not be now travelling first-class to Stellenbosch." MORAL.--Invention is a good servant, but the Letter killeth. * * * * * A BRAVE CANADIAN. BLOEMFONTEIN, _March 28th_. DEAR SIR,--In answer to a paragraph appearing in your paper of a past date under the heading of "Acts of Bravery performed during the War," allow me to quote one which I witnessed at Paardeberg on the morning of Cronje's surrender on February 27th. Every one knows of the gallant display made by the Royal Canadians on that never-to-be-forgotten morning, and how, as daylight broke, they had again occupied their trenches, leaving sixty killed and wounded on the field. As the sun came up behind the kopjes, revealing once more to Cronje and his men the exact position of our trenches, they opened a heavy fire upon them, and woe to the man who was indiscreet enough to show his head and shoulders over the earthworks! Between the trenches and the Boer position lay Canadian dead and dying. About 5.30 a wounded man about five hundred yards away was seen to be trying to make for our trenches under a heavy fire, but was at last observed to fall. Now and then, between the volleys, he was seen to wave his hands as if for assistance. Suddenly from the left of us a form was seen to climb the earthworks in front of our trenches, jumping down to make straight for the place where the wounded man lay, about ninety yards from the Boer trenches. Utterly regardless of the scathing fire which hissed about him, he ran on, and at last reached the wounded man and tried to lift him, but it was too late, for the poor fellow had breathed his last. Seeing it was of no avail, his would-be rescuer walked back over the ground he had covered, and although bullets whistled around him and tore up the ground in every direction, he coolly regained his trenches with a pipe stuck between his teeth. I have since ascertained his name was Private Thompson, of the Royal Canadians, and although I do not know whether his case is one _recommended_ for distinction or not, still I have never during the campaign seen a case of such coolness and pluck as that displayed by Private Thompson. Considering the galling fire that swept the distance of four or five hundred yards which he covered in his endeavour to reach the wounded man, also his close proximity to the Boer trenches, it seems marvellous that he ever lived to get within four hundred yards of him, not to mention getting back without a scratch. His case is one of the most deserving of recognition, coming, as it does, from amongst the