/. D. B. . 239 



legislative assemblies successful in the Cape Colony, in which 

 the possessions of the De Beers Company lie ; but it was 

 also extended with equally facile results to the neighbouring, 

 though foreign, Governments of the Transvaal and Orange 

 Free State. Viewed from purely a commercial point of 

 view, I do not see that the De Beers people are either to 

 be praised or blamed for their handling of the I. D. B. 

 question. If they have adopted discreditable means to 

 accomplish their ends ; their enemies, who had begun the 

 battle, fought even more unfairly. 



I. D. B. is a subject around which a great deal of romance 

 has centered in the minds of emotional people in South 

 Africa. We have had pointed out to us the Jew millionaire 

 whose prolific chere amie used to go to England every year 

 for her annual interesting event On one particular im- 

 portant occasion, having her feet firmly planted on English 

 ground, she refused to deliver up the burden she carried 

 until her 'friend 1 had made her an 'honest woman.' This 

 he did with the best grace he could ; for he regarded her 

 as a lesser evil than the loss of his uncut diamonds. There 

 were the Africander or native * runners,' who, before the 

 ' squaring ' of the Orange Free State, used to carry ' parcels ' 

 across the frontier on specially-trained racehorses. These 

 ' boys ' took a pride in their hazardous calling, and used to 

 swagger about Kimberley in the smartest of riding toggery, 

 drinking champagne at a guinea a bottle, smoking half- 

 crown cigars and generally misconducting themselves. The 

 female detectives of course made a point to 'trap' their 

 rivals in love. A policemen who had been censured for 

 'slackness' for not obtaining convictions, induced, after a 

 great deal of persuasion, a friend, who was far from well 

 off, to lend him five pounds, and after insisting on his 

 benefactor keeping in pledge an uncut stone which he gave 

 him, informed on him, with the result that the unfortunate 

 friend got three years penal servitude. Another policeman 

 put two of his friends, with whom he used to go on short 



