KIMBERLEY.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19332, 9 June 1928, Page 16

KIMBERLEY.

THE DIAMOND CITY. WHERE STRANGERS ARE SUSPECT. (By F.M.) Kimberley, where the All Blacks have just achieved their second victory, is ono of the strangest towns in the world. A rainless, arid-looking city, it is. as every clever schoolboy knows, the greatest diamond producing centre in the world, and it is this superlatively- lucrative industry that has invested the town with a strangely tinted atmosphere (metaphorically speaking), a history, and a notoriety that is unique. ' Kimberley is the home of suspicion, and every stranger is suspect, every inhabitant is a potential 1.D.8. The letters, perhaps, need some explanation in New Zealand. They stand for "illicit diamond buying" (or buyer), one of the most serious criminal offences in the calendar of South African justice. It is said that a new arrival in Kimberley is shadowed from the moment he alights at the railway station, and inside of 24 hours the company's agents know his name, his business, and a good many other things, including his past record, if any. And yet, in spite of every precaution that is taken, diamonds are smuggled out of the mines by the native boys, and they find a ready market—the 1.D.8.'s are always ready, for they buy the stolen stones for a" song. Every mine worker is rigorously searched before he leaves the mine property, and a small tooth comb would not be more thorough in its work. And even should the boys swallow any stones they stand no chance of getting away with them, so exhaustive is the investigation. But, despite all these, there is a leakage. Rigid Laws. Even postal packages arc subjected to a, scrutiny, and I know personally of a case where a box of chocolates, sent from Kimberley to Johannesburg, had been broken and every chocolate broken open and examined. "That," said the young lady who received the gift "is what I call going too far." Finding diamonds ,in the streets of Kimberley is not a profitable business. The penalty for being in possession of an uncut 'diamond is too drastic to make it worth while for an honest man, and even if a cut and polished stone should be picked up (they have been found, strangely enough) it must immediately be returned to de Beer's office, the company, being the recognised owners of any loose stones that may be found. I understand thata non-employee is rewarded in the circumstances, but an employee gains nothing by it. . What is claimed, to be the largest hole in the world,is to be found at Kimberley. It is an excavation that beggars description, and it- is still being mined. Possibly it was used in the days of Queen Sheba and Solomon. Aeroplanes, it is said, avoid flying over it on account of the air vortex above it. The Olden Days. Some stirring tales are told of the old 1.D.8. days in and around Kimberley. and one of the historians was a man called Louis Cohen, who, in his "Eeminiscences of Kimberly" (banned in South" Africa; I believe)' shed a great deal of light on the manner m which fortunes were made, and he did riot hesitate to give names; for which, it is said, he was subsequently very, very sorry: It was a favourite practice among illicit buyers when the police were in pursuit- to make their horses swallow the atones. They would gallop off, and if caught nothing would be found. If not, they .wouldmake a race for the Orange river,, into the Free State, and on the Free State river bank they would slaughter their mounts, extract the stones from the horses' stomachs, and flourish them derisively in front of the officers of the law; who "were raging impotently on the opposite bank. Natives, too, were cunning sometimes, and the story is told of a kaffir who approached an 1.D.8. agent in the lonely veldt; He showed him a magnificent stone in the palm of his hand, and the delighted agent, after gazing apprehensively, around, asked his price. Some bargaining ensued, the buyer, being anxious to make a getaway, capitulating at a fairly stiff price. The native slipped the stone surreptitiously/into the buyer's ]* and .> and received in exchange a bundle of notes, and both immediately ran ott at full speed in opposite directions. When the buyer judged he % had gone a safe" 1 distance he opened his hand io examine his diamond, and found—a lump of gravel. The kaffir was a sleight of hand expert. , l ; Cohen also tells of two women who were suspected of illicit trading, and. were surprised in the sitting roonvof an hotel. They were detained in the room, and while they were being interrogated, the landlady entered and removed the .table-cloth. The police could gain no admission from them, and an- iron-visaged police matron was called in. She subjected the ladies to a merciless search, but no diamonds were found. The landlady had inadvertently removed them in the tablecloih, and this the two women noticed In high glee they hastened to interview the landlady; but their delight at their escape turned to dismay when the woman disclaimed all knowledge of the stones! And no amount of persuasions, threats,, and storming could make her admit that there were any The perfect landlady! But 1.D.8. has been productive or some good. It has given Cape Town a fine breakwater—every stone of it having been built by 1.D.8. prison labour. And some of those stones were placed there by slim-fingered, aristocratic hands, too. The 1.D.8. was the aristocrat of prisoners.