Evening star., 1935-05-19

q 20 ''s;::'' G:
UPPER: $4,000 MEN, ALL RUSH.
ING TO STAKE OUT CLAIMS IN
THE LICHTENBURC DISTRICT OF
THE WESTERN TRANSVAAL.
CENTER, LEFT: SORTING AND
WASHING DIAMONDS IN THE
AFRICAN FIELDS.
CENTER, RIGHT: NAPOLEON'S
FAMOUS NECKLACE. INSET: THE
JONKER DIAMOND, AS BIC AS AN
EGG.
LOWER: FROM AFRICA TO
AMSTERDAM THE DI MON ID
GOES FOR CUTTING.
| into a copper strip, will file anything.
The hardest known substance has
uses other than ornamentation and
wealth concentration.
1t Is estimated that, in all, dia-
monds to the tune Of $50 200, 900 car
ats have been taken out of the South
| African chimneys-and there seem to
be plenty more where they came from.
And probably there are other deposits
as yet uncovered elsewhere in Africa,
Brazil and India.
S750,000,0O0 In Diamonds.
Supposing half the 10000, 900 car
ats of diamonds were good enough to
RJIf iY1tn iauynle avad ollnxxyiy,1 he
heavy loss in cutting sometimes as
much as so per cent?, one arrives at a
rough total of 30,000,000 carats, worth
probably s750,00O,0Oo. Add the bort
and splints, say 10000, 900 carats, and
you have another $1o0, 900, 900, at
least, to add to the total.
Clap on the syndicate profits, the
cutters, jobbers and retailers profits,
and, If you say that the private own
ers Of these diamonds have paid s2,-
100000, 900 for them, you will prob
ably not be far out.
One could fill this magazine with
the tales of crimes committed for pos
session of fortune concentrated into
a bit of crystallized carbon. They
range from the sordid and common
place to the magnificent and bizarre.
Some old diamonds have indeed
caused so much woe that they have
been given a personality by the super
stitious.
For example, legend has it that the
priests of the Hindu temple cursed
the thief who stole their great blue
| diamond subsequently known as the
Hope diamond, from the name of its
first English owner), and all those
who might after him possess the
stone. The diamond, by the seven
teenth century, had found its way
over the old trade routes to Europe.
1t had a long list of fatalities back of
1t before Louis XIV bought it. The
French Bourbons can scarcely be said
TO have enjoyed good luck thereafter.
| Thelr destruction in the revolution
threw the stone into the market
again, and 1t came to England by
way OF three successive owners, each
OF whom came to a violent end,
Owner Of Hope Diamond.
Lord Francis Hope, who acquired 1t
ny inheritance, was nearly killed by
the accidental discharge of a gun be-
fore he married the American May
Yohe, and was practically ruined be-
fore he divorced her in 1902, so that
he had to sell the diamond to pay his
debts. Prince Kamtovskl bought ii
from jeweler in Paris in 1903 and
gave 1t to the French actress, Ladue.
The night she wore it for the first
time on the stage of the Folies Ber-
gere, jealous admirer killed her on
her return to her apartment. The
prince took possession of the diamond,
but was murdered few days later
by man who attempted to steal it.
A Greek merchant bought it and
was murdered along with his wife
and two children. Abdul the Damned
then became its owner-poor Abdul!
After wreaking further mischief, it
crossed the Atlantic and came to roost
in the Edward Mclean house. Little
Vincent Mclean ran out of the
grounds into the roadway, and was
run over and killed by a passing au-
tomobile.
1t takes more than an iI-luck
brand, however, to deter the cold and
skeptical gentlemen of the diamond
syndicates when they want a stone.
They lately bought from the Arch
duke Joseph of Hapsburg for $780,
600. the famous Golconda, q 66-carat
diamond which had trailed blood and
misery over half the world for 200
years before it came to roost, in 1870,
in the vaults of the imperial Haps-
burgs-whose luck, the superstitious
would say, has not been anything to
boast about since.
Stone Brings Luck.
The Koh-i-noor (mountain Of
ligh0, the seventeenth largest dia-
mond in the world Qt weighs 1861
carats), is supposed to bring luck to
its owners and disaster to those who
lose their grip on it. Legend traces it
back to 81 BE-, but it first appears
in documental history in 1904. In
that year it came into the treasury at
Delhi, as part of the loot of walwa,
capital of the Pathan Empire. Tam
erlane's grandson, Baber, found it at
Delhi when he conquered Hindustan
and founded the Empire of the Great
Moghula. Nadir Shah in due course
conquered the fag end of the Baber
line, and took the great jewel.
Thus 1t passed through the years
from conqueror to conqueror, and
Oriental despot to Oriental despot,
eventually coming into the possession
Of RUM ct Singh after the Sikh con-
quest of the Punjab. His successors
lost it when they lost their kingdom.
The East India Co. took 1t in part
payment Of q debt owed by the state
of Lahore and offered 1t to Queen Vic
toria, who accepted 1t and willed 1t.