BULLEE — BU music in Christiania had no permanent result, and, after his second marriage, with an American lady, in 1870, he confined himself to the career of a violinist. He died at Lyso, near Bergen, on 17th August 1880. Ole Bull’s “polacca guerriera ” and a host of other violin pieces, among them two concertos, are a good deal more interesting to the virtuoso than to the musician, and his fame rests upon his prodigious technique rather than upon any very remarkable attainments in the higher regions of art. The memoir published by his widow in 1886 contains many proofs of the interesting intercourse he enjoyed with a great number of the most eminent men of his time, not merely musicians ; it gives a picture of a strong individuality, which often found expression in a somewhat boisterous form of practical humour. (j. A. F. M.) Buller, Sir Redvers Henry (1839 ), British General, son of Mr J. W. Buller, M.P., of Crediton, Devonshire, was born in 1839, and educated at Harrow. He entered the army in 1858, and served with his regiment, the 60th Rifles, in the China campaign of 1860. In 1870 he became captain, and went on the Red River expedition, where he was first associated with Lord (then Sir Garnet) Wolseley, and in 1873-74 he accompanied the latter on the Ashantee campaign as head of the Intelligence Department, being slightly wounded at the battle of Ordabai. He was mentioned in despatches and made a C.B., besides being raised to the rank of major. In the Kaffir war of 1878-79 and the Zulu war of 1879 he was conspicuous as an intrepid and popular leader of cavalry, and built up a reputation for courage and dogged determination. In particular his conduct of the retreat at Inhlobana (28th March 1879) drew attention to these qualities, and he earned the V.C. for his assistance in rescuing Captain D’Arcy and Lieutenant Everitt on that occasion; he was given the C.M.G. and made lieutenantcolonel and A.D.C. to the Queen. In the Boer war of 1881 he was Sir Evelyn Wood’s chief of the staff, thus adding to his experience of South African conditions of warfare. In 1882 he was head of the Field Intelligence Department in the Egyptian campaign, being present at Kassassin and Tel-el-Kebir, and was knighted for his services. Two years later he commanded an infantry brigade in the Sudan under Sir Gerald Graham, and was at the battles of El Teb and Tamai, being promoted majorgeneral for distinguished service on the field. In the Sudan campaign of 1884-85 he was Lord Wolseley’s chief of the staff, ami was given the command of the desert column when Sir Herbert Stewart was wounded. He once more distinguished himself on this occasion by his conduct of the retreat from Gubat to Gakdul, and by his victory at Abu Klea Wells (16th, 17th February), and he was created K.C.B. In 1887 he was made quartermastergeneral at the War Office, and in the same year was Undersecretary for Ireland for a short period. From 1890 to 1897 he held the office of adjutant-general, attaining the rank of lieutenant-general in 1891. At the War Office his power of work, his quick mastery of detail, and trenchant criticism inspired those that came in contact with him with the belief that he was fitted for the highest command, and in 1895, when the duke of Cambridge was about to retire from the post of Commander - inChief, it was an open secret that the Rosebery Cabinet intended Sir Redvers Buller to be his successor, though it was reported that the conditions of the position were to be modified and the title changed to that of Chief ol the Staff, as recommended by the Hartington Comnussion. On the eve, however, of this change being ettected, the Government was defeated on Mr Brodrick’s
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motion with reference to the alleged shortage of small-arm ammunition, and Lord Salisbury’s Cabinet, on reconsidering the question of War Office reform as left to them by their predecessors, selected Lord Wolseley as the new Commander-in-Chief for a period of five years, Sir Redvers Buller remaining adjutant - general. In 1898 he took command of the troops at Aldershot, a five years’ appointment, and when the Boer war broke out in 1899 he was selected with universal approval to take command of the South African Field Force (see Transvaal, War), and landed at Cape Town on 31st October. Owing to the Boer investment of Ladysmith and the apparent helplessness of the generals sent to relieve the situation in Natal, he unexpectedly hurried off to Natal in order to supervise personally the rescue of Sir George White; but on 15th December his attempt to cross the Tugela at Colenso was lepulsed with 1100 casualties and the loss of ten guns. The Government, alarmed at the situation and the tone of Sir Redvers Buller’s messages, sent out Lord Roberts to supersede him in the chief command, Sir Redvers being left in subordinate command of the Natal force only. His second attempt to relieve Ladysmith (10th to 27 th January) proved another failure, the result of the operations at Spion Kop (24th January) causing consternation in England. A third attempt (5th to 7th February) was again unsuccessful, and it was not till 28th February that, the important position of Hlangwane Hill having been occupied on 19 th February and Pieter’s Hill having been carried by General Hildyard on 27th February, the relief of Ladysmith was accomplished. Sir Redvers Buller remained in command of the Natal army till 24th October 1900, when he returned to England, having in the meanwhile slowly done a great deal of hard work in driving the Boers from the Biggarsberg (15th May), forcing Lang’s Nek (12th June), and occupying Lydenburg (6th September); but though he still retained his reputation for dogged determination and was devotedly followed by his own rank and file, the verdict of military critics on his capacity for an important command in delicate and difficult operations had now become decidedly adverse. The continuance in 1901 of his appointment to the Aldershot command, which was the most important in the new army scheme, met with a storm of public criticism, in which the detailed objections taken to his conduct of the operations before Ladysmith (and particularly his heliogram hinting at the contingency of surrender) were given new prominence. On 10th October 1901, at a luncheon in London, Sir _ Redvers Buller made a speech in answer to these criticisms in terms which were held to be a breach of discipline and contrary to the king’s regulations, and on 23rd October it was announced by the War Office that he had been relieved of his command and retired on half-pay. Bull-fighting'.—Bull-fighting is a survival of barbarism, the existence of which is fervently deplored by all but its devotees, whose delight in it is at the pi’esent time as keen as at any former period. The British idea of sport is that the creature pursued should have a chance of saving its life by its strength, speed, or natural cunning ; the claim of bull-fighting to be regarded as sport is negatived by the fact that the bull is doomed from the moment of its entrance into the arena. But the main objection to the business in the eyes of persons of the most ordinary humanity lies in the atrocious slaughter of horses, which is a leading feature of the entertainment in Spanish eyes. The poor creatures are blindfolded and forced again and again in the bull’s way, until, bleeding from many gores, and usually disembowelled, they drop in agony. That a brief description of bull-fighting should be
