The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-04-24
Kaf1r Modesty, Which Darwin
Says is a Matter OF
etiquette.
Tales of Detectives Whose Business 1t Was
to Apprehend Diamond
Smugglers.


Mall Gazette. Under the compound sys-
tenn the Kaffir contracts for three months to
work, board and lodge with the company.
When not at work he spends all his time
eating, sleeping or playing games in spa
cious quadrangle built round with iron
sheds. For that time he is cut off from the
outer world, and from drink stronger than
ginger beer. His few needs in the way of
food and clothes he can supply within
at cost price. On his way to and
from the mine he is strictly watched. So,
too, while at work underground, where he
Qaily sweats away from to 6 on bread and
soup and mealies, for II to 81 week.
Fresh from the mine, he has to pass the
ordeal of the searching room, where, naked
mouth, ears, nose, hair, or rather scrub,
armpits-every conceivable or inconceiva-
ble4odgment for acknowledges through
certain gymnastic exercises and makes way
for the next. The whole per. ormance ls
absolutely the most extraordinary thing
ever saw in my life. Further description
would encroach upon tacenda.. re-
member remarking to my clcerone:
''It's lucky you have black labor
handv-no white would stand this
sort Of thing for any e ages undsr sae
are nominally liable, if suspected, to q
similar scrutiny, there was riot and blood
shed once at Kimberly when it was pro-
posed to impose on whites something of the
sort as matter of routine. Modesty, as
and that of the Kaffir is not that of Mr..
Horsley. Yet, he too, has his own; and it
is hard to believe, little as the boys" seem
to care, that there is not something degrad-
ing about such a performance. However,
it makes it impossible to have diamond
~ 9TH uIon 10
inside.
Or our Kaffir, we will assume, prefers to
sell his diamonds himself. He possesses
his soul in patience until his three months
are nearly up, then digs up his diamond or
diamonds, swallows the lot and passes gay
It is true that week before his exit he has
to spend in a specially constructed room
and under circumstances of surveillance
that must at least render it very difficult
thus to turn the diamond into circulating
pected, It will avail him little to confront
the customs house of the compound with SO
treacherous portmanteau as the human
form divine. But, you will say. they can
not treat the unhappy native as Baron
him inside out; but they can put him his
hands padlocked within certain fingerless
leather gloves) into a small and
solitary chamber, and there subject him to
such peine fort ct dure rs speedily attains
its end. BY prescriptions of kind familiar
and nourishing diet as is adapted to q
febrile patient, the treatment proceeds
until satisfactory cure is effected. Val
liable additions have in this way been made
to the worlds wealth in diamonds.
Sometimes. again. parcels are badly sent
through the Cape Town postof6ce artfully
concealed by the familiar smuggler's
lodges. such as cutting a hole inside a
understanding family novel and filling it
with stones. Or some 'lady'' who is in the
smuggles it on shipboard and carries it to
Europe with her. find that can myself
boast the honor of having once been fell
low-voyager of notorious female !. u.
B., or illicit diamond buyer, of this sort.
Against such organization and such cum
ought, perhaps. to exercise little eau
tion in retailing this part of the strange
lore which gathered from Messrs. Chad
wick and Izdebsky (might not Izdebsky, as
detectives name, have como out of
novel?)-the arch-sleuth hounds of Kim
berly, who are ever hard upon the footsteps
of the diamond smuggler. The native /. d.
b. runner" both within the compound and
outside, is met by the trap runner" also
native, employed by the detectives. AS the
former is a diamond buyer pretending to be
miner, SO the latter is a detective pretend
object, however, is to catch our friend,
the master buyer. This is done
by watching his house and "rushing'' him
red handed, just after he has bought from
trap runner" who had palmed himself off
as Kaffir from the mines. There is some
thing Of the agent provocator about the
business: but man is only trapped"
when he has become a notorious I. b. b.,
with very black dossier of the detective
office: A trap, runner, by the way, only
gets Sd month and his keep. A good 1.
D. b. runner gets f5 a week. drink, a
done. He has therefore, better time {till
he gets his five, ten or fifteen years. than
the government boy" who moreover is only
good for one appearance in court, when his
face becomes known to the secret fratern-
ity. An informer, however. gets half
the value of the property recovered, and
when one l. d. B. turns against another
there are rare hauls, These gentry prey on
their own kind. / was shown sumptuous
brilliants made of bottle glass which must
sometimes it's own reward. / saw, too, a
bottle case still bearing the label of Bays
water chemist, which had been the hiding
place of $3.50 worth of stolen brilliants.
1t was found lying about where its owner,
at some sudden alarm, had chucked it away.
It is wonderful what the l. d. B. will do
under these circumstances to get rid of the
damning gems.
There is one story of wild midnight
chase across the frontier, pursuer and pur-
sued on horseback, when the latter was seen
to put his hand up and struggle in the sad
die a moment. It turned out that he had
swallowed, while on the gallop, not only 32
carats of diamonds, but also the lead-foil
box which contained them. In another case
Mr.. Izdebsky or his colleague recovered a
bag with e14 600 worth of stones, which the
guilty owner disclaimed and tried to throw
away. On the whole, whether we chiefly re-
gard the squalid conditions under which it
is pursued, the systematic Decentralization
which 1t propagates or the degrading pre-
ventlve measures to which it compels re-
course, We must conclude that the trade of
diamond smuggling is one of the most dis
graceful in the annals of roguery, and that
the slightest faint of completely ought to
ostracize q man, however wealthy, from de-
cent society.
Unsurpassed in the World.
The vestibuled trains of the Chicago,