The necessity for the extensive machinery and the enormous cost of the searching and detective departments will to my mind be done away with if the “compound system” inaugurated by the Central Co. in the Kimberley mine be carried out by other companies. In April, 1885, this company opened their buildings for native servants. I attended the opening ceremony, and to my surprise found a large yard some 150 yards square inclosed partly by buildings and the remainder by sheets of iron ten feet high. Within this inclosure were sleeping-rooms for 500 Kafirs, a magnificent kitchen and pantry, large baths, guard-room, dispensary and sick-ward, store and mess-rooms. There is no doubt that this arrangement will be the means of greatly decreasing the thieving by natives, but it opens up a great question connected with the business of the place, with respect to the “truck” system which must follow, and has yet to be threshed out. During the fifteen years I have been on the Fields, I can conscientiously say, I have never known one single man found guilty who did not well deserve his punishment, though I have known many escape through the laudable determination of the judges to require most incontrovertible evidence before convicting. I do not attempt for one moment to extenuate the crime or treat lightly the social ulcer which so undermines the moral health of the community, but I cannot help drawing attention, in connection with the subject of this chapter, to the 450 carat diamond which has just flashed like a meteor across the London market. This is well known to have come from Jagersfontein. A whisper had never been heard of a diamond of such weight, such color and such brilliancy having been found there or in any other mine in the country, but a Port Elizabeth house quietly shipped it, and it was bought in London for £20,000 by a syndicate composed of men knowing the diamond fields intimately. The actuality of this diamond came prominently before the public in a suit before the High Court of Griqualand West in October, 1886, in a case wherein the chief of the detective department was called to give evidence. During the course of this gentleman’s examination one of the judges said: “Do you know where that very large diamond produced in London some time ago came from?” “I do; from information received I could give your lordship the whole history of that stone from the time it left the ground until it reached Messrs. —— Bros.” This led to another question by one of the other two judges comprising the bench, which clinched the matter: “Was it a Griqualand West stone?” “No, it was not, my lord.” These, perhaps, like the Pharisee, “thank God, that they are not as other men are.” But the question I would ask is this syndicate not the buyer, second hand, of stolen property? “Conscentia mille testes.”