scramble after hats, and the last Amen has scarcely been uttered when
there is a rush for the doors. It seems to amount to a sort of
competition as to who will be first in the street.

It may be interesting to pause for a moment and look at the
collections. The poorer classes besiege the stores on Saturday with
anxious inquiries for 'stickeys,' i.e., threepenny-pieces. To a poor
man with a large family of church-goers this matter of church
collections is a serious business unless he can get four mites out of
a shilling, as coppers are not used in the Transvaal; but I have
known men of good standing inquire as eagerly for the despised
threepenny-piece. When special collections are called for, in aid of a
new organ fund, for instance, the results are rather surprising. In
one instance the combined special collections on a Nachtmaal Sunday
amounted to a little over £500, with a congregation of only 400. This
points to the fact that there is money enough in the country, and it
only requires a church collection to prove it.

It is to be regretted that the Boer does not devote a little more
attention to the education of his children. If there happens to be a
school anywhere near his farm, he does not mind taking advantage of
this with a view to 'teaching the young idea how to shoot'; but
perhaps he takes too literal a view of this adage. His chief care is
to see that his boys are taught to shoot straight, and he does not
attach so much importance as he might to the three R's. The Boer who
can afford such luxuries engages a tutor for his children, but tutors
are mostly of the English persuasion. They have not yet learned to
appreciate the language of the country, and this constitutes a serious
barrier. Again, one does not expect much of a country school, and the
majority of the men who preside over these institutions in the Dutch