From the passing of ordinance 48 of 1882 until the extension of that ordinance to the entire colony in the session of 1885, Capetown and Port Elizabeth were the head-centres of the I. D. B.’s, who, possessing capital, wished to evade the consequence of their nefarious trade. These scoundrels bought diamonds which were stolen and smuggled from Griqualand West, and men, supposed to be honorable (?) merchants, even members of the legislative assembly, were reported as trading with these characters in diamonds which they must have known to be stolen. An apparently legal, though in reality a dishonest trade, was carried on by these men, who were described by the editor of the Orange Free State _Advertiser_ as “M. L. A.’s and M. L. C.’s, in league with thieves and receivers of stolen property.” The Diamond Trade extension act has however been of infinite service in checking the illicit traffic at the Bay and Capetown, though it has not entirely extinguished it. As a matter of fact, there does not exist anywhere a more unredeemable set of miscreants than the arch-thieves who are at the head of the illicit diamond trade in South Africa. Illicit diamond buying, like all crime the root of which is greed of money, tends to kill all humane instincts, and leaves those who practice it more selfish than the very brutes and absolutely dead to every better feeling. The flattering unction which the confederates of the I. D. B. fraternity lay to their souls, if any grain of conscience remains, is that they are merely guilty of a revenue offense. It is therefore only to their cowardly fear of punishment that the law of the land must appeal if a stop is to be put to the wholesale system of robbery which they have organized and carried on so long with comparative impunity. The I. D. B. now and then boasts in his cups that he has bought hand over fist, and cares nothing for, the adjective detective; but when the aforesaid adjective detective lightly lays his hands on his shoulder, he usually manifests the craven cowardice of a Noah Claypole rather than the bravery of a bold outlaw like Robin Hood, or the semi-chivalrous audacity and recklessness of a Claude Duval or a Dick Turpin. [Illustration] CHAPTER XVI. I. D. B. TALES FROM REAL LIFE.—“THE MYSTIC THREE LETTERS.”—AN UNGRATEFUL HOUND.—A PLUCKY WOMAN.—NEMESIS.—TOO CLEVER BY HALF.—THE EARLY BIRD CATCHES THE WORM.—AN UNEXPECTED RECOVERY.—A DEATH-BED SCENE. In connection with this nefarious traffic, this insidious disease I will term it, the nature of which I have, I hope, fully explained in a preceding chapter, I purpose appending a few examples, grave and gay, to illustrate the subject.