238 Among Men and Horses. 



In both these immense undertakings the genius of Mr 

 Rhodes has helped them greatly. To make a ' corner ' in 

 diamonds, he had to be strong ; but to keep I. D. B. in 

 control, he had also to work on the fine old principle that 

 every man has his price. As English law supposes that 

 everyone is innocent until proved guilty, and that the burden 

 of proof lies on the person who asserts the affirmative, it 

 was manifestly inadequate to grapple with this contra- 

 band trade. The De Beers people accordingly drafted out 

 laws which, they considered, would meet their difficulty ; 

 and by judicious ' squaring ' induced the Cape Parliament 

 to put them into force. It would be preposterous to suppose 

 that if the House of Assembly had not been ' squared,' and 

 very well ' squared,' too, it would have enacted that anyone 

 found in possession of an uncut diamond could, without 

 further evidence, be sent to penal servitude, unless that he 

 or she could conclusively prove that the stone had been 

 lawfully obtained ; that conviction would follow such de- 

 tected possession, even if the accused person could prove 

 that he or she had innocently obtained the diamond from 

 police officers of the company who had given it with the 

 deliberate intention of betraying the receiver ; and that all 

 such convictions were summary, without any trial by jury. 

 The company make no secret about this system of ' trap- 

 ping/ which they try to excuse on the plea that it is 

 essential to their existence, and aver that it is never put 

 in force, except against those whom they have good reason 

 to know are engaged in the illicit traffic. As their de- 

 tectives obtain rewards for convictions, innocent people are, 

 of course, now and then trapped. The victims, however 

 have the consolation of knowing that although it is naturally 

 a hardship to have to 'do time' on the 'breakwater' at 

 Cape Town, where they are sent for I. D. B., it is not much 

 of a disgrace in the eyes of the South African public, who, 

 directly or indirectly, have had a fairly large connection 

 with the game. Not alone was the policy of ' squaring ' 



