The Graves of Our Heroes

Decorated by The Loyal Women's Guild of South Africa.

"The Queen fully sympathises with the objects of the Guild of Loyal Women of South Africa as set forth in your circular, and Her Majesty has much pleasure in giving her patronage to the special work which the guild have undertaken for the protection and care of the graves of all who have died for Queen and Empire during the war."

Motto.—"Be just and fear not. Let all thou aimest at be thy country's, thy God's, and truth's."

I.—Every member must subscribe to the three fundamental principles of the guild: (a) To endeavour to make the people of South Africa realise and feel proud of the fact that, whatever their names or descent, all are members of the great British Empire; (6) Loyally to strengthen the hands of the Imperial Government and of Her Majesty's representative in this land; (c) To draw closer the ties which unite Great and Greater Britain, and to form a link in the chain which binds the dependencies and colonies to the mother country.

II.—The guild seeks to spread right views of the great questions uppermost in all minds just now.

III.—The guild seeks to educate the coming generation and make them realise that they belong to the "greatest and best Empire the world has ever seen."

IV.—The guild seeks to unite all the white races in South Africa.

V.—The guild has undertaken as a sacred charge the care of the graves of all the brave men who have fought and died for the Queen and Empire during the war wherever within reach. Committees are being formed to take up this responsibility, but all the members of the guild are asked to assist in the work of placing flowers on the graves on Christmas Eve, Easter Eve, and the yearly anniversary of the day on which peace is proclaimed. . . . All ground where the heroes and victims of the war, on both sides, have been buried has been expropriated by Act of Parliament in the Cape Colony, and no doubt the same will be done in Natal and elsewhere; and the military authorities have promised to fence in our soldiers' and volunteers' graves, but the charge of the graves themselves is ours.

VI.—It is also proposed "that the members of the guild, to show their appreciation of the magnificent spirit of patriotism which animated our brother colonists at the moment of peril to the Empire, should place in Cape Town, the headquarters of the guild, a memorial to the sons of the Empire who have laid down their lives in South Africa in the cause of liberty and loyalty.

These pictures show the first occasion (at Easter) on which the Bloemfontein branch—which is the central committee for the Orange River Colony of the Loyal Women's Guild of South Africa—placed wreaths on the graves of the soldiers who have fallen. The honorary secretaries of the branch are Miss Florence Fraser and Mrs. Murdoch Anderson, Bloemfontein, by whom contributions will be gladly received (through the Standard Bank of South Africa, Clement's Lane, Lombard Street, E.C.). As many as 150 sites in Cape Colony, the Orange River Colony, and the Transvaal have been identified. The guild hopes to raise from £4,000 to £5,000, so that where necessary simple headstones may be erected where now small rough bits of wood with the names of the dead, erected by their comrades, mark the sacred spots