Truly an impressive and curious study
was that House of Assembly in the session of 1899.
The number of people, more or less interesting, whom we met at Groot
Schuurr, seemed to pass as actors on a stage, sometimes almost too
rapidly to distinguish or individualize. But one or two stand out
specially in my recollection. Among them, a type of a fine old
gentleman, was Colonel Schermbrucker. A German by birth, and over
seventy years of age, he had served originally in the Papal Guard, and
had accompanied Pio Nono on the occasion of his famous flight from Rome.
Somewhere in the fifties, at the time of the arrival of the German
Legion, he had settled at the Cape, and had been a figure in politics
ever since. His opinions were distinctly English and progressive, but it
was more as an almost extinct type of the courtly old gentleman that he
impressed me. His extreme activity for his years, his old-world manners,
and his bright intelligence, were combinations one does not often meet,
and would have made him an interesting figure in any assembly or
country. Another day came Judge Coetzee, erstwhile Kruger's confidant
and right hand, but then of a very different way of thinking to his old
master. His remark on the warlike situation was as follows: "Kruger is
only a white Kaffir chief, and as such respects force, and force only.
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