NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE news from the front during the past week has been bad. We give below the details of the action at Nocagedacht, but in addition to that disaster comes the telegram that two bands of Boers have crossed the Orange River, one at Rhenoster Hoek and the other at Sand Drift. They are said to number some six or seven hundred each, but possibly they may be two thousand in all. Naturally this inva- sion of Cape Colony has caused a good deal of anxiety and alarm, and dread is expressed that the appearance of the enemy may lead to an insurrection in the disloyal districts. We do not, however, think it likely that the rising, if it takes place, will be serious. If any large number of men show active sympathy with the Boers, the only result will be that they themselves will receive punishment in their lands and persons, while the party which is in sympathy with them in the Colony will also suffer punishment by the loss of their votes. It must not be supposed that the Boer bands broke into the Colony under any deeply planned scheme. They probably made their so-called invasion chiefly because all other ways were barred, and because they wanted to get into an unwasted country. Though we cannot, of course, help feeling annoyed that the war should thus linger on, we are by no means inclined to be seriously depressed as to the situation. In spite of the bad news of the week, we should not be surprised if by the New Year a considerable part of the Boers now in the field were brought to book. While a fight is going on it always seems as if it will never end, but it does for all that.
