Come, then, ye gentles and geniuses, ye poets, ye anecdotists, ye thrillers and movers with the pen--join our staff, and put your mighty little ink-damped levers to the rock that we are rolling up the gigantic kopje of your thirst for news and entertainment. Your pay shall be the highest ever meted out to man--the satisfaction of souls content. Your company shall include a Kipling. Your readers shall be the bravest, noblest, proudest soldiers who ever served an earthly race. You can ask no more. You can ask nothing else. But in the meantime we want "copy." We published also a brief communication respecting the Dutch name Stellenbosch. This needs a word of explanation. It had long been noticed that whenever an officer was prominently connected with a losing battle, or exhibited marked incompetence in any field of military work, he got a billet at Stellenbosch, a bowery village deep down in the Cape Colony, where was established our base camp of supplies. The name therefore attained a deep significance and common usage in the army, and to say that a man had been "Stellenbosched" was but the ordinary polite mode of mentioning what might otherwise have had to be said in many harsher-sounding words. * * * * * THE FRIEND. (_Edited by the War Correspondents with Lord Roberts' Force._) BLOEMFONTEIN, FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 1900. PROCLAMATION. Whereas it is considered necessary in the interests of the Orange Free State, and until arrangements may be made, that the provisions of the Customs Convention existing between the said State and the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, and the Colony of Natal, shall be duly observed, and the Laws and Regulations appertaining thereto shall be enforced as soon as communication between the said Colonies and such portions of the Orange Free State as have been or may hereafter be occupied by Her Majesty's troops is restored, and the customary commercial relations are resumed; and whereas it is expedient that the necessary officers for the control and management of the Customs Department of the Orange Free State shall be appointed, NOW THEREFORE I, FREDERICK SLEIGH BARON ROBERTS OF KHANDAHAR, K.P., G.C.B., G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E., V.C., Field Marshal, Commanding-in-Chief of the British Forces in South Africa, do hereby nominate and appoint the following officers, to wit:-- _Collector of Customs_--Johannes Henricus Meiring. _First Clerk_--Albert C. Woodward. _Second Clerk_--Frederik Blignaut. * * * * * A WARNING TO NATIVES. EXEMPLARY SENTENCES. It is evident from the sentences inflicted by the Provost Marshal that the military authorities are wisely determined to repress all forms of lawlessness and unruliness on the part of native boys with a firm hand. Take the following three cases by way of illustration:--