The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1895-03-14
THE AFRICAN DIAMOND MINES.
How Smuggling Is ENTHUSIASTICALLY c
the Company.

There is no show to buy stolen dia-
monds at the present time" said Al
Hale, the Colorado prospector to
R0cEV Mountain NelCS man.
The fact is. the entire diamond
bearing district of South Africa has
been walled in by high stone wall and
nobody is allowed to pass in or out I'M
less he is subjected to the closest scru-
tiny. Inside the walls are 10000
negroes. who are secured for periods of
six months at time to work in the
mines. The negroes are fed on corn
meal and are paid 80 or 90 cents 4 day.
They come from the interior of the
country, 500 or perhaps 1000 miles
away and are ordered to the mines by
the chiefs of the tribes on pain of in
slant death if they refuse.
The agent of the diamond syndicate
pays the chief liberal amount for his
aid in sending workers to the mines,
and the poor, ignorant negroes have no
alternative but to obey. Once inside
the gloomy walls the black man has no
possible chance of escape and he delves
like galley-slave until his six months
have expired. Then he is paid off and
the entire delegation from one tribe
marches home across the deserts in a
body. 1t is seldom that black is seen
a second time in the mines.
There is a very satisfactory reason,
so far as the individual is concerned,
why he never returns. The diamond
miner carries home with him money
enough to buy several wives. Ii he IS
careful of his earnings he has enough
hard cash to buy four wives and that IS
the summit of his ambition. Any negro
owning four wives is exempt from labor
for the remainder of his days. He is
known as gentleman his wives do
all the work for him and he poses as
one of the big men of the tribe.
This IS, of course, a strong induce
ment for black man to 90 to the
mines, but the chances are that he will
die from exposure or fall into bad COM
pany and lose his money, so the nabObs
are not as numerous as one might sup
pose. Very little is known of what is
going on in the interior of the diamond
region. Every avenue is guarded by
detect.:es and stranger caught lOiter-
inc about in the neighborhoOd is liable
to be sent to Cape Town for five to 1if-
teen years on the charge of buying
stolen diamonds"
Mr.. Hale said that the trade in stolen
diamonds became so heavy a few years
ago that the owners of the mines organ
lied to drive the traders out of the coun-
try. The devices for concealing and
carrying the diamonds out of the mines
were remarkable for their ingenuity
and their success.
The law of the Dutch republic re-
quired that any man charged with dia-
mond theft or purchasing stolen gems
should have the privilege of a trial by
jury. As the majority of the jurors
were generally engaged in the same
shady transaction the convictions were
very few and far between and the coun-
try swarmed with diamond buyers.
Fortunes made on the outside were
larger than those made on the inside.
The mine owners bought up the legis-
iators and law was passed requiring
all diamond eases TO be heard before
three judges, who were given the power
to send the guilty men to the break
water at Cape Town for a long period
of years.
The law has worked like a charm.
The Judges are said to be absolutely I'M
approachable from the standpoint oil
the diamond buyer and a long process
sion of disappointed spectators has
been marched off to the south so that
there are now not less than 1000 con-
victs from the diamond region piling
up stones to hold back the ocean at
Cape Town.
Mr.. Hale says it is the most dis
heartened body of men he ever saw,
many of them being possessors of large
fortunes. The edict has gone out
against the diamond buyer, and he was
practically not in the field this year in
South Africa.
OF course. the European syndicate is
correspcndingly happy and the dia-
mond trust regulates the output at its
will. Merchants and dealers at Kim
berly are on the verge of bankruptcy,
as they are under the eyes of the paid
detectives every hour and their books
are regularly inspected by officials of
the government who are working in
the interest of the European mine own
erS.
The glory of Kimberly has departed
and the money which once went into
the capacious pockets of the merchants
now goes to enrich the gilded palaces
Of the European capitals. From quiet
Investigations which Mr.. Hale made in
South Africa he is of the opinion that
diamonds are so plentiful in the district
that everybody could wear sparklers if
the mines were opened to their full ca
pacity.