URING
the month of December, 1881 there appeared in the London papers a
dispatch from the Cape Diamond Fields which stated, in half a dozen
lines, the fact that two thieves, having stolen a diamond of 209 carats
had been captured with the stone in their possession. The story is
interesting, more particularly as an illustration of the risk in
diamond mining to which we have previously referred, and which will
crop up again during our investigations, namely, that of robbery. From
the very earliest days diamond seekers, slaves, or freemen, employed
by princes or companies, have yielded to the temptation of concealing
their most valuable discoveries. At the South African Fields to-day
this incentive to dishonesty is increased by the existence of an active
system of dealing in stolen stones. It is an axiom of English law that
the receiver is as bad as the thief; but in Cape Colony the former
seems to flourish even more securely than he does in England.
