PRETENDER, The Young. See STUART, CHARLES EDWARD.
pre-teri-a, South Africa, ad ministrative capital of the Union of South Africa (q.v.) and the province of the Trans vaal (q.v.), situated on the banks of the small river Aapies, a tributary of the Limpopo, 4,500 feet above sea-level, 46 miles northeast of Johannesburg, 349 miles by rail west of Delagoa Bay and 1,003 miles by rail northeast of Cape Town. The town is regularly laid out and many of the streets are planted with splendid willow trees. The most important public buildings are the government buildings, in Church Square, surmounted by a statue of Liberty; the post office; the Dutch Reformed church, formerly in the centre of Church Square, destroyed in 1905; the Anglican cathedral of Saint Alban; a Roman Catholic church, with school and convent buildings; a new Dutch Reformed church; the former presi dency and residence of the late Paul Kruger (q.v.) ; the Jewish synagogue, a handsome build ing; the new market buildings; the law courts; a public library, containing English and Dutch books; the National Museum adjacent to the Zoological Gardens; a new opera-house. Pre toria, since 1916, is the administrative seat of the newly constituted University of South Af rica, consisting of six colleges in various parts of the Union with a total of 87 teachers and 560 students in 1915-16. The town is lighted by electricity, and public waterworks were opened in 1891. Just outside the town are the barracks, and near them the prison is situated. In 1896 the Boer authorities began the con struction of a circle of six 'forts round the town, which since the Boer War have been dis mantled. Pretoria was founded in 1855, and was named in honor of Andries Pretorius, the first President of the South African Republic. In 1864 it replaced Potchefstroom as the seat of the central administration. In December 1880 the British garrison in Pretoria was be sieged by a force of Boers, and on the retro cession of the country in the following year the town was evacuated by the British troops. The
gold-rush which began about 1886, and the working of the natural wealth of the neighbor ing Witwatersrand, had a great influence upon the condition of Pretoria, which was rapidly improved in respect of architecture and sanita tion. On 5 June 1900 the town was occupied, practically without opposition, by a British force under Lord Roberts, after President Kruger, who had for many years been the dominant figure of the town, had fled in May, and then became the headquarters of the British operations in the South African War (q.v.). It was at Pretoria that on 31 May 1902 the peace articles were signed. In 1907 the first Parliament of the Transvaal (q.v.), which by that time had become a self-governing part of the British Empire, met at Pretoria. It was later displaced by a Provincial Council. Since 1903 Pretoria is a municipality, controlling its sewers, water and electric-light systems, as well as its trolley lines. There are a number of at tractive suburbs, in one of which, Bryntiri'on, is located Meint)es Kop which has become the site for the public offices of the Union. In the cemetery at the western end of the town are buried Paul Kruger and many of the British who fell in the Boer War. Nearby is also the big new Central Railway station and workshripc. The world-famed Premier Dia mond Mine is about 30 miles northeast of Pretoria. The population, which before the war was about 12,000, has increased to over 29,618. Consult Berthold, H., 'Pre toria, die Hauptstadt des Neuen Suedafrika' (in 'Zeitschrift ffir Kolonialpolitik, Kolonial recht, and Kolonialwirtschaft' (Vol. II, pp. 826435, Berlin 1909); Hillegas, C., 'Pre toria Before the War' (in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. C, pp. 548-557, New York 1900) ; 'Pretoria. News of the Camp. A Journal Published in the Military Camp of Her Majesty's Forces Defending Pretoria, 25 Dec. 1880 to 9 April 1881' (ed. by C. Du-Val and C. Decker, Pretoria 1880-81).