The most interesting point to observe in connection with the diamond trade ordinances is the gradual increase in their stringency, obviously the outcome of, and in direct ratio to, the growth of this illicit traffic; to bear this out, in 1880, when Mr. Rose Innes was administrator, the punishment of this crime was again increased to a maximum of five years’ imprisonment and £500 fine for the first, and ten years and £1,000 for the second offense, with six and twelve months in addition respectively if the fines were not paid. I was vice-president of the legislative council of Griqualand West when this ordinance (No. 8 of 1880) was under discussion. At the time it seemed monstrous to me (these cases being left to the discretion of a single magistrate) that on the opinion of one man, without a jury, a fellow creature, possibly innocent, might be consigned to prison for ten long years. I spoke strongly on the matter, but it was argued that with a jury, the illicit traffic having so many ramifications (as the Spanish proverb has it, “by the parson’s skirts the devil gets into the belfry”), it would be almost impossible to gain a conviction. To meet this emergency I proposed a three-judge court (the same principle that has since been adopted in Ireland with reference to the “Crimes act”), which suggestion was supported by the government, and now under the title of “The Special Court” criminals of this class appear before a just and strictly impartial tribunal In 1880 (previous to high court with three judges being constituted) a special magistrate was appointed to act in conjunction with the Kimberley and Du Toit’s Pan magistrates to form the special court, but since our high court has been formed, and the Diamond Trade Act 48 of 1882 has become law, this office has been done away with, and one of the three judges now sits in turn as president of the special court. The act just mentioned (48 of 1882) when it passed the Cape parliament might have been at once extended to the whole colony, but it was enforced by the government in Griqualand West only, consequently any one could buy or possess diamonds with impunity in the Cape Colony proper. As again in the Free State, although an ordinance was passed in the same year (No. 3 of 1882) of even greater severity, providing maximum penalties for its contravention of £2,000 fine, twenty years’ hard labor, 100 lashes, and last but not least the power to expel from the State all moral lepers in the shape of persons convicted outside the State in Griqualand West of I. D. B., their judges interpreted it not to extend beyond six miles from proclaimed diamond diggings; therefore so far as that State was concerned the free trade in diamonds was owing to an omission in and not a permission by the law. [Illustration: FREE TOWN.[43] ] The judges there seem to have been actuated by the sound legal principle that penal laws should be strictly or rather restrictively construed.