Year: 1872

The statement concerning young Hard
ing, who stole the mailbag from the New
Rush (South Africa) pOstoflice, containing
four or five hundred thousand dollars
worth Of diamonds besides large amount
o! ready money and checks, has been
given briefly heretofore. The following
account OF the young man is calculated TO
''pOinL a moral:


The culprit is the younger son Of n gen
tlcman residing in Surrey, England. "To
keep the elder brother up in state" the
younger Was sacrificed. This particular
Harding was aseHtlemans son, and though
primogeniture absolutely demanded that
his father should not spoil the paternal cs-
tate by giving fIifn any part of it or fiiri-
iSlinG him the means of "gCttng on i'll
business out of its revenues, an education
suitable for II gentleman must lie given to
him. ...


When he left college young Harding was
fitted to shine as a man of leisure, but not
to succeed rs a man Of business. Indeed
it seems That to go into business at all was
never contemplated by him. His father
plainly never said, How is this boy when
grown to manhood to support himself p
Whether Harding had no desire to enter
the church or the army our meagre account
does not infOIm us. But certain it is that
ii his family had influence enough to pro-
cure him 4 position i'll either they failed to
exert it, and permitted him to di ift on pur-
poseless. 1t will be thought by many rea-
deIS that he should have become the ar
chitect OF his own fortunes that he should
have struck out for himself, as the world
owed him living and should be compelled
TO pay its debt. This line Of reasoning
fails to take into consideration the peculiar
social atmosphere In which this young man
was born. His circumstances and his edII-
cation were all against his doing anything
for himself.


1Iarding's idleness soon became intOler-
able to hiIaself. lie solicited permission,
which was gladly granted we may be sure,
TO go to South Efrica. Perhaps hc had
vague visions Of making 9 fortune by dig
ging diamonds. Such a hope was proper
enough i'll its way at distance, but wien
he reached the spot it soon came to nat1ght.
Harding did nothing could get nothing to
do. He realized fully the Scriptural des-
criptiOn Of another person. ''IIe could not
dig, and to beg he was ashamed But
unfortunately be was not ashamed to steal.
He tilched eEl0Q from his roommate, a
Mr.. Beauclercls, and left Cape Town for
the diamond fields. While there he learned
that a warrant was out for his arrest OH
complaint for theft. What could he do !?
He was standing in the vicinity of the post





leaving the building before his eyes sug-
gested way of escape. A mailbag would
surely contain one hundred pounds 1t is
robblng Peter 10 pay Paul; but then Peter,
here meaning tie public, can better afford
to lose the amount than Paul, and besides,
no one will know the ndbBer of the mail
bag-this was the illusion-whiIe, every
one would hear ofthe thief of one hundred
pounds when produced in court. Harding
reasoned quite speciously that he would,
by pursuing such a course, keep his own
body out of Jail and save his family from
the resulting disgrace.


"Fhis s'gentleman" robber appears to be
man i'll many respects of fiue organiza-
ton. No Hamlet is he. What his head
commands his hands execute, and at the
moment. He did not procrastinate. lie
did not even wait TO see whether any one
was watching him. He advanced to the
window of the postoffice, broke pane OF
glass, opened the sash, and, without the
slightest trepidatiOI, took ont the mailbag,
and having concealed it, walked off. He
was not i'll error as to finding one hundred
pounds found more than q Thousand