Let us have the point at issue clearly defined. War correspondents are with the army to report the war--some by word pictures, others by camera or pencil pictures. Sight-seeing is a passion with humanity. Every inhabitant of the British Isles would like to have a personal vision of the conflict in South Africa, but--save for two or three irresponsible persons whose presence at the front no one can understand--those inhabitants are compelled to rely upon the eyes of others. Now, leaving aside the correspondents who devote themselves to word pictures solely, the question to be decided is--does the man with the camera surpass the man with the pencil in depicting the actuality of warfare? An astounding claim is made on behalf of the man with the pencil. He can, we are told by Mr. Wollen, show the public "an accurate bird's-eye view of what a battle is like." And he does it by "a few lines to indicate the background and characteristics of it." The same authority assures us that "the brain of the camera cannot take in all that is going on. The man with the pencil does so." Such is the case for the man with the pencil. Now for the test of cross-examination. Modder River and Maghersfontein may be cited as two representative battles of the war, and so may be honestly used as touchstones to try the claim Mr. Wollen makes on behalf of the man with a pencil. In each case there was a battle-line of some five or six miles, in each case the enemy was invisible, in each case it was physically impossible for any one man to see more than a small portion of the battle. A spectator on the right flank at Modder River could have no personal knowledge of incidents which were happening in the centre of the bridge, or down the river on the left flank. Even of his own particular section on the right flank that spectator could not attain to a perfect knowledge. But the man with a pencil is untrammelled by such minor matters as time and space; he "takes in all that is going on." Or, if he does not take it all in, he puts it in his sketch. The result is no more "an accurate bird's-eye view of what a battle is like" than a photograph of Oom Paul is like a photograph of Mr. Chamberlain. In short, the facility with which the pencil-man can jot down what he did not see is his ruin.