LONDON, January 11. The following dispatch, dated Frere camp, January 10th, noon, has been received by the war office from General Buller:

"A Transvaal telegram gives the enemy's loss at Ladysmith on Saturday as four killed and fifteen wounded, and this after, it is admitted, they had endured a withering fire from six masked batteries and been defeated at all points. Natives here assert that the Boer loss in one commando alone was 150 killed and wagon-loads of wounded. The heaviest loss is said to have been among the Free Staters, who were forced by 'the Transvaalers into the most dangerous places."

This curious dispatch is all that the war office has issued tonight. It makes not the slightest mention of the position or doings of the British forces. It may be interpreted to mean that Ladysmith is safe, but it is more likely intended to prepare the British public for a terrible list of casualties.

FIRING ON LADYSMITH

LONDON, January 10. A dispatch to The Daily Telegraph dated Monday, January 8th, at noon, from Frere camp, says: "Firing from the Boer positions around Ladysmith began early today. It still continues, but the cannonading is light and irregular."

LONDON, January 11. The Daily Mail has the following dispatch dated January 8th from Frere camp: "With the exception of the usual shelling of the Boer positions by the naval guns, the British forces remain inactive. Eight Boer camps were seen today by a patrol along the Tugela in a westerly direction. All were quiet. Natives say that when the British reconnoitered near Colenso on Saturday, the Boers hurried from Springfield. This supports the belief that Colenso was weakened to attack Ladysmith."

THE FREE STATERS TO THE FRONT

The Standard has received the following from its special correspondent at Frere camp: "I hear, on good authority, that President Kruger sent word to the Boer headquarters asking why Ladysmith had not been attacked, and that the reply was, 'We should lose too many men.' His answer to this excuse was the suggestion that the Free Staters might be put in the forefront. The hint was taken and the attack delivered.

President Kruger's advice was so far good that the Free Staters behaved better than the Transvaalers have done. At all events, they managed to seize a hill. Later in the day, the Transvaalers retired before General White's counterattack, amid the jeers of the Free Staters, who actually stuck to their position until after they were bayoneted in the ditch. After this affair it is almost certain that the allies will quarrel.

LORD ROBERTS ARRIVES

LONDON, January 11, 1 a. m. During the interlude of apparent military inactivity and official secrecy. Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener have arrived at the seat of war. It is assumed here their clearer vision, supported by 53,000 fresh men who are due to arrive in South Africa within thirty days, will alter the situation and that the fourth month of the campaign will witness the beginning of victories for the British arms. Their presence will restore the shaken confidence of the men at the front in their generals.

Lord Roberts finds 120,000 men on the defensive or watching for an opening. Lord Methuen's health, according to The Daily Mail, has "broken down," and the field marshal may believe him. Possibly some others will be relieved of important commands.

There is a suspicion that when the Ladysmith casualties are announced they will be disheartening and will partially destroy the patriotic glow produced by General White's victory. The list of victims of disease issued by the war office gives twenty-two deaths from enteric fever and dysentery in Ladysmith in four days, relieving the fact that the besieged are existing amid bad sanitary conditions.

THE GENERAL SITUATION.

The Standard summarizes the general situation thus: "Well, the campaign has lasted three months. We have something like 120,000 troops in South Africa. With this huge army distributed over the country we are still powerless to relieve three garrisons from investment. We have still to see large portions of both colonies in the hands of the enemy. We have driven the invaders back at no single point. We are actually further from the hostile frontiers than we were on the day that the ultimatum was delivered. The work which ministers believed could be effectively performed with 25,000 men, has not been done, has not even been begun, by four or five times that number. Can any one fail to admit that this is evidence of a grave miscalculation of forces and facts?"

The war office has authorized a special yeomanry corps. Every trooper joining will pay for his own kit, and mount, for transport and for all other expenses until his arrival in South Africa, and will then give his services to his country and pay for the privilege into the fund for widows and orphans the amount he would receive as a trooper. Several influential gentlemen have already enrolled.

The Times in an editorial criticising at great length the government conduct of the war, alludes to "the stupid and perverse mistakes" that have been made and demands that the "practice of the non-revelation of facts" be abandoned. It insists strongly upon knowing 'the truth and the whole truth' about the situation, and finds fault with Mr. Balfour's defense piece meal.

BOERS WANT DURBAN.

London, January 11. The Times in a special article dealing with the Delagoa bay question, expresses the opinion that the endeavor of the Boers to overrun Natal lends confirmation to the assertions made before the war by prominent Boers that they would seize Durban as a port. The article proceeds to point out that by the through rate system, specially favorable to Transvaal shipments over the Delagoa-Transvaal railway, German ship owners have been unable to secure traffic with little risk of examination at continental ports or at Delagoa bay.