Committees were formed, with whom the Government officials in the Colony worked with great zeal and considerable success toward alleviating the misery with which they found themselves confronted in such an unexpected manner.

The Municipal Council, the various religious communities, the Medical men--one and all applied themselves to relief measures, even though they could not comprehend the reason of the blind rush to the Cape.

Nor, in the main, could the refugees explain more lucidly than the one phrase which could, be heard on all sides, no matter what might have been the social position: "We had to go away because we did not feel safe on the Rand." In many cases it would have been far nearer to the truth to say that they had to go because they could no longer lead the happy-go-lucky existence they had been used to.
The most to be pitied among these people were most certainly the Polish Jews, who originally had been expelled from Russia, and had come to seek their fortunes at Johannesburg.

They had absolutely no one to whom they could apply, and, what was sadder still, no claim on anyone; on the English Government least of all.

One could see them huddling together on the platform of Cape Town railway station, surrounded by bundles of rags which constituted the whole of their earthly belongings, not knowing at all what to do, or where to go to.