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As is known, the conference between Sir Alfred Milner and President Krüger, assisted by President Steyn, took place at Bloemfontein during the first days of June last , and resulted in the refusal to a demand of a five years' franchise made on behalf of the Transvaal Uitlanders, which refusal was some time later modified by enacting a law admitting them to full burgher rights after a probation of seven years, but coupled with restrictive forms and conditions which made that measure unacceptable.

The worthy burgher, in the plenitude of self-importance, now sate down upon a chair, wiped his brow, collected his breath, and made the first experiment of the resolved pith of his lungs, in a deep and dignified sigh, resembling a groan in sound and intonation "Awfu' times these, neighbour Deans, awfu' times!"

Few men of that period deserve a more kindly and more honourable remembrance by posterity for their contributions to science and the progress of civilization than John Huygen van Linschoten, son of a plain burgher of West Friesland.

A rich burgher of Antwerp, a stately ample man, in a broad Flemish hat, and who was the great man and great patron of the establishment, sat smoking a clean long pipe on one side of the door; a fat little distiller of Geneva from Schiedam, sat smoking on the other, and the bottle-nosed host stood in the door, and the comely hostess, in crimped cap, beside him; and the hostess' daughter, a plump Flanders lass, with long gold pendants in her ears, was at a side window.

Already thousands have your kingdom fled In joyful poverty: the honest burgher For his faith exiled, was your noblest subject! See! with a mother's arms, Elizabeth Welcomes the fugitives, and Britain blooms In rich luxuriance, from our country's arts.

A tile-roofed open gallery ran along the top, where so many centuries of sentries had paced, and arched the massive gates with heavily moulded piers, where so countlessly the fierce burgher troops had sallied forth against their besiegers, and so often the leaguer hosts had dashed themselves in assault.

As they passed the gates they were greeted by a thunderous welcome from their townsmen upon the walls and at the windows. Their steady, solid ranks, and broad, honest burgher faces, seemed to me to smack of discipline and of work well done.

We were, however, exposed to a cross-fire for fully three miles, but it proved ineffectual, for only one burgher was slightly wounded. If the enemy had not retreated that day, or had only occupied a certain brook, through which we had to pass, it would have been impossible for us to escape. But if there were no ifs there would not have been such a lamentable war in South Africa.

It is significant that the charters of the French communes were frequently cancelled with the approval of the citizen assemblies. The situation was different in Flanders and North Italy, where the city was the natural unit of society, and the burgher class, enriched by foreign trade, were strong enough to negotiate on equal terms with their nominal superiors.

And in no individual of that day were those excellent qualities more thoroughly embodied than in William Barendz, pilot and burgher of Amsterdam.