The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-10-01
coNvIcTs SEARCHING FOR STONES IN THE BLUE EARTH.

suppressed to a great extent the Kim
berley detectives are kept very busy
and the surgeons at the hospital in the
compound have plenty of sore legs to
bandage While visiting there recently
l saw a Matabele boy dying of lock-
jaw caused by terrible wound in his
right leg. He had cut open the calf
and concealed diamond weighing
fifty-two carats in the flesh.
This seems to be the favorite place of
concealment. Formerly the boys did
thriving business by swallowing the
diamonds, but Mr.. Williams has put
a stop to that by penning up these
I II, 900 natives, in one great Enclosure
! called the compound. and it is safe to
say that no such habitation like this
is to be found on the face of the earth.
1t is built in the form of square
and includes about five acres. Along
each side of the square are built one
story corrugated iron buildings divided
into rooms holding twenty natives
each.
! A high iron fence is erected around
the compound, ten feet from the build
ling, and guards armed with Martini
rifles patrol thereabout.
Even with this arrangement, how
ever, it was found that many diamonds
were being filched, and it transpired
/
concealed them until they got in the
compound, and then pitched: them over
/ the fence to a confederate on the street
Mr.. Williams thereupon had the entire
compound rooted with. fine wire netting
and this terminated the thefts of that
sort.
There is very little opportunity these
days for native to dispose of a gem
He is never permitted to leave this
compound, and when his time of service
is approaching he is kept for two weeks
| in, a. special compartment absolutely
naked, along with fifty or sixty broth
ers. If the boy has concealed in his
anatomy somewhere precious stone
it is bound to make it's appearance in
! that time. A surgeon goes over each
boy every two days, and if he looks
sick, puts him through a sort of third
! degree that generally ELECTS a diamond
or two. The company RECEIVERS about
| e 100000 worth of diamonds in year
from the native employees in this way
The boys in the compound are a jolly
/ lot. The convict 1aborers: on the con-
trary, present a sullen appearance and
look like murderers. These men are
employed mostly in sorting the dia-
monds as they come from the washing
machines. Keen-eyed guards, with in
structions to shoot the first man who
attempts to escape, watch every move
ment of these unfortunate beings The
law against l. d. B., in fact, is ter
ribly stringent. Any person caught in
Cape Colony with a rough diamond
in his possession and no certificate OF
registry, gets a short shrift If a white
man, he is sent TO the Breakwater con-
Wet station at Cape Town, for perhaps
ten years, where he is employed in ex-
cavating for the new decks One OF
the most distressing scenes in South
Africa is the march of these men from
prison to work through the streets sur
rounded by a regiment of guards One
entire section is made UP of Ameri-
cans, and among them is the son of an
ex-congressman and the scion of a
famous New Orleans family.
To be a successful diamord thief
therefore, requires the utmost clever
ness, but the detectives at Kimberley
will tell you of many instances when
| they have been outwitted An Ameri-
can from Chicago, who owns a saloon
| in johannesburg, wears on his shirt
bosom one of the finest stones to be
seen on the Rand and glories in tell.
ing how he beat the Kimberley sleuths
by feeding the diamond in a bunch of
hay to his horse. He rode the animal
out of Cape Colony, pursued by the of
HcerS, until ne got over the border into
the Transvaal, where he cut the. horse
open and took out his prize
Another man got ahead of the detec-
tives by loading his gun with about
100 carats. Suspicion rested on him. and
he was followed, but escaped detection
by firing the charge into an OK. When
the detectives left he cut out the stones
and made for the Transvaal, which is
the haven of the /. D. B. men. A
great many diamonds have been stolen
by feeding them to chickens and ship
ping the latter to Johannesburg
America has proved a bonanza for
Mr.. Rhodes and his syndicate. 1t is
chiefly owing to our. increased demand
that the prices have been raised. Mr.
George f. Kunz, the Tiffany expert
who knows more about diamonds than
any one else in America, has just COM
pleted his annual report on the pro-
duction of precious stones in 1898 for
the department of the interior-United
States geological survey, and therein