Part 2

So in the matter of diamond-smuggling. Artists—if we may profane the word—have come to the front, men far ahead of the original stereotyped smugglers, who were contented to carry on their business in old-fashioned ways; ever cudgelling their brains to find out modes of concealment so elaborate as to make sure they would be discovered. All the more extraordinary devices of concealment, as they were thought to be at the time, were one by one found out and battled with by the custom-house officers of the United States. Some of them were thought rather remarkable, as, for instance, those managed by means of artificial teeth—a set of these useful implements of mastication being fashioned in such a manner that every tooth possessed a cavity which contained one or more diamonds or other precious stones: the hole being deftly filled up with cement, discovery was thought impossible. By this ingenious mode of procedure, a large number of the rarer gems were at first smuggled into the States without paying duty (ten per cent. on diamonds), chiefly by means of female aid. Waxing bolder by long-continued immunity from any discovery of their fraud, the officers on duty began to wonder why the same ladies had so often occasion to cross the Atlantic; and one of their number surmising that it was ‘for no good purpose,’ determined to have a particular female carefully watched during the voyage. A stewardess with whom the officer had a friendly acquaintance was enlisted in the service; and this person did all she could to find out why the suspected ladies so frequently visited Europe, but to little purpose, as she thought, all she was able to discover being apparently not of much consequence. One day, however, whilst carefully examining the berth in which the traveller slept, she found a broken tooth, which was hollow and exceedingly fragile. As the stewardess used artificial teeth, she naturally enough felt interested in the matter, and spoke to the voyager about the circumstance. The lady at first looked embarrassed, but then said she had been cheated by the dentist. At the end of the voyage the stewardess reported the circumstance to the officer, who, after thinking it over, came to the conclusion that there was more in the affair of the hollow tooth than met the eye. New York, in fact, is celebrated for its dentistry; and on consulting one of the professors, the officer discovered that teeth of the sort had been made in quantity and from different moulds to the order of a very ’cute man, who said they were wanted to be sent to Europe. This statement afforded a sufficient cue; and accordingly, at the termination of the next voyage, two ladies, sisters, were respectfully but firmly requested to take out their artificial teeth. Remonstrance was unavailing; the teeth were made to disclose their hidden treasures; the result being that thirteen valuable brilliants were confiscated, much to the chagrin of the fair smugglers. That little episode put an end to that mode of smuggling diamonds.

There is a never-ending demand throughout the United States for these gems; and several of the earlier adventurers were known to have made money by means of the smuggling business. In reality, diamonds are a passion with many American ladies, who must have them, no matter what they may cost. These gem-loving dames, in their eagerness to ‘trade’ for jewels of all kinds, are not unfrequently cheated by persons who sell them ‘bogus’ diamonds, made of paste, at a comparatively cheap rate, under pretence of their being smuggled stones, and that, having escaped the payment of duty, they are a bargain at the sum demanded. Wealthy American ladies vie with each other at the various fashionable resorts of the United States in their displays of costly jewels and gems. It was stated a few months ago in an American paper that a rich man’s wife wore upon her neck and breast every evening precious stones of the value of forty thousand pounds; other ladies displaying jewels to a lesser amount. Nor are American ladies free from the charge of smuggling; many of them, indeed, are adepts at the business, able to impart a secret or two to ‘the professionals.’ During a recent Saratoga season, one lady was heard to boast that she had brought over a suite of diamonds in the heels of several pairs of slippers which she had made on purpose to contain them. These dainty articles were ostentatiously displayed, and taken notice of by the searchers; but the heels were not suspected to be hollow or to contain diamonds. Hollow-heeled boots were at one time greatly in use as a part of the smuggling machinery. That mode of carrying on the illicit traffic was ultimately discovered by an under-steward of an American liner, who, for ‘a consideration,’ communicated the secret to the custom-house authorities. Then followed a series of contrivances in the shape of double-bottomed trunks, valises with secret pockets, desks with hidden drawers, and guns and pistols which were so contrived as to contain a few of the much-coveted gems. All these contrivances were in turn discovered: they were just the kind of concealments which the officers had their thoughts fixed upon. For a time, we believe, the professional diamond-carriers were discomfited; but their discomfiture was not for long; the business was too profitable to be easily relinquished, however great the risks might be.

Just as the customs’ authorities were under the impression that they had suppressed the illicit traffic, a new era in gem-smuggling was inaugurated, and more diamonds reached the United States ‘duty free’ than before. Smuggling, it may be said, developed into a fine art; at all events, the incidence of the trade for a brief period became so simple as to seem like child’s play; indeed, children were made to play an important part in the business. A story which lately became public shows how well the modern diamond-smugglers had laid to heart Poe’s precepts. ‘Please to hold my baby whilst my husband helps me to open my trunks; he will be quite good if you will shake his rattle,’ said a lady passenger to the officer who was waiting to look over her travelling gear. And that officer good-humouredly did as he was requested, shaking the rattle, to the great delight of the little one. The rattle in question, which, fastened to a ribbon, was tied to the child’s waist, was filled with gems of great value, a mode of smuggling that at the time was too too simple for detection.

A clever female attired in the costume of a Sister of Mercy was passed over by the officers because she had no luggage worth examining. She possessed, however, a fine string of beads, which, with downcast eyes, she kept telling. Safe on land, she was affectionately welcomed by two persons dressed in costumes similar to her own. Need it be told that she was a smuggler, and that her beads were so constructed that each held a diamond weighing seven or eight carats. Another ingenious person hit upon the plan of placing a few precious stones in a toy kaleidoscope which had been given to a child, who carried it ashore in safety. A number of homing pigeons kept in cages, and purchased at a village in Belgium, and brought to the United States by way of Paris and Havre, also played a profitable part, each of the pigeons being freighted with a cargo of exquisite gems, concealed in quills, and carefully fastened to the message-bearing dove. An extensive system of diamond-smuggling was at one time carried on from Canadian ground by the aid of homing pigeons. The discovery of this illicit trade was made accidentally by a farmer, who happened to shoot one of the birds, and on examining it found that there was fastened to its leg a quill containing a number of diamonds! A clue being obtained, the local habitation of the pigeon proprietors was discovered and their mode of business put an end to. The scheme, stated simply, was to fly every week or ten days a flock of a dozen or fifteen pigeons, each carrying about half-a-dozen gems. As the duty on diamonds amounts to ten per cent., the trouble taken to smuggle these gems into the United States does not seem so very remarkable. The value of the precious stones honestly imported into the States is between eight and nine million dollars per annum, and it has been calculated that gems to half that sum escape payment of the duty.

Many tales have been circulated with regard to diamonds, some of them of a rather curious kind. We have read of faithful messengers who, rather than yield up the stone they carried, swallowed it. The owner of a slave who had done so, and who had been killed by robbers, was so convinced of his servant’s fidelity, that he gave directions for the opening of the body, and found that the honest fellow had swallowed the precious gem. Dishonest servants employed at the diamond mines frequently display wonderful ingenuity in concealing stones which they have purloined while at their work. About a year ago, a rough diamond weighing four hundred and fifty-seven carats was stolen by a person in the employment of the Central Diamond Mining Company at Kimberley (South Africa), who sold it for the sum of three thousand pounds to four persons who dealt in stolen stones. It was then sold at Cape Town to a firm of illicit dealers in diamonds for nineteen thousand pounds; and was ultimately purchased for forty-five thousand pounds by a syndicate of London brokers in precious gems. The means by which this magnificent brilliant was smuggled from the mines and ultimately got to England was never made known. It is notorious enough, however, that a large trade in fraudulently obtained stones is carried on at the South African gold-fields; and stories are told of buyers around the diamond mines who have made large fortunes by purchasing stones at nominal prices from labourers who possessed the cunning and the courage to successfully brave the authorities and bring to the resetters their stolen goods.

It has been calculated by persons engaged in the business that twelve per cent. of the fall in the price of rough diamonds, which has taken place within the last few years, should be set down to the sale of stolen gems, which, to the value of more than half a million sterling, annually find their way to the markets. These stones are the direct fruits of theft, those selling them having made no contribution whatever to the cost of obtaining them. When first the work of diamond-seeking at Kimberley began, there were no thefts of any importance, because each man was then working for his own hand, or as one of a limited but friendly partnership. It was not till the work of diamond-mining required the aid of hired labour that the work of systematic robbery commenced, and ‘I. D. B.’ (illicit diamond buying) became an institution of the Diamond Fields. Many of the persons employed, soon fell into habits of peculation, not being able to withstand the temptation presented by the appearance of a little bit of stone that might be worth, perhaps, a thousand pounds, if they could succeed in carrying it away without being detected. In every branch of the process of gem-finding, valuable diamonds, it has to be explained, are always at the mercy of the men employed, some of whom are never slow to take advantage of any chance that may present itself of securing a stone. Such thefts during the last few years have proved a source of serious annoyance and trouble in connection with the industry. The ‘I. D. B.’ trade, as it is locally termed, has tended to sap the morality of the place, and given rise to the many evils which result from resetting. There is an old adage which says that ‘if there were no resetters, there would be no thieves.’

Great precautions are taken by the various diamond-digging Companies at Kimberley to prevent the theft of stones; whilst the crime of reset is always punished with much severity. A license to deal in rough diamonds costs a sum of fifty pounds per annum; and dealers, in addition to procuring this authority to trade, are required to find security to a large amount. Dealers are bound by the terms of their license to make exact entries in their books of every parcel of stones they purchase, and also how they dispose of them. Large diamonds must be described in detail and minutely. Should the detective department suspect any dealer of illicit traffic, that dealer may at any moment be visited, and have his books and stock overhauled and compared; and should he possess a few stones which he is unable to account for, he is liable to have his whole stock seized. Upon a late occasion, a friend of the writer’s, while on a visit to the Kimberley Diamond Fields, was informed that two well-known diamond dealers had just been visited by the detectives; and one of these persons having about eight hundred carats, and the other about seventy carats, not accounted for in their books, the police seized their stocks—upwards of ten thousand carats in all; and within one month from the date of the seizure, both dealers were tried, convicted, and sentenced; and if still alive, they are now working out their time on the breakwater at Cape Town. One of these men was reputed to be worth over a hundred and fifty thousand pounds. At the present time, there is quite a colony of convicted ‘illicits,’ as they are sometimes designated, working out their sentences on the harbour-works at Cape Town, a goodly proportion of the gang being worth large sums of money.

Although there is a considerable and clever detective staff on the Diamond Fields, there are those at Kimberley who can outwit the police, at anyrate for a time, and so it happens that such a number of stones is annually stolen as to prove a factor in disturbing the market price. The chances of detection are no doubt great; but the hope of securing a few hundred pounds by a little peculation is so tempting, that there are always hundreds of men at ‘the game.’ Some of the thieves—that is, the men who steal the stones they are paid for unearthing—display great ingenuity in carrying away the gems. The business of diamond-digging is naturally of a rough-and-ready kind, and presents opportunities for fraud which are not available in other industries. When diamond-stealing first became a business, those interested, suspecting no evil, were easily cheated. Stones were then carried away concealed about the person of the labourers. But, as the thefts increased, greater precautions were taken to insure the detection of the thieves. Some of the ‘dodges’ which have been resorted to in order to carry diamonds from the diggings have been not a little remarkable; we have only room, however, for a sample or two. Upon one occasion, it is related that an ingenious labourer wrapped the stones in a small piece of soft bread, the morsel being greedily snapped by a dog. The dog was carefully looked after till the mine was left behind, when it was ruthlessly killed, to obtain the hidden diamonds which were contained in its stomach. Domestic fowls have been trained to swallow the smaller stones, which have afterwards been cut out of their crops. A parcel of stolen gems has been known to have been got out of a well-watched digging by having been ingeniously fastened to the hair of a horse’s tail!

Any individual suspected of being an ‘I. D. B.’ may expect, on leaving the Fields, to be overtaken on his road to the coast by detectives, who will search him in order to find if he be in possession of any stones. Many devices have been resorted to for the concealment of the diamonds. A Dutch Boer who had been for some time under suspicion, on leaving the Fields with his wagon was followed by some detectives who had determined to search him. Just before he was overtaken by the officers, he was seen to detach one of the bullocks from his team and deliberately shoot it. By the time the police came up the Boer was busy removing the hide. A thorough search was made by the detectives; but no gems were found. The phlegmatic Dutchman had placed the diamonds in the barrel of his gun, and had fired them into the body of his bullock, from which of course he had to extract them; and he did so as soon as the police turned their backs upon him.

The various modes of diamond-smuggling revealed in the foregoing narrative present no peculiar features of endurance or romance; but cases have occurred in which pain and suffering have played a part in the business of diamond-hiding. There is, for instance, the story of the magnificent gem which in its rough state formed the eye of an idol in a temple near Trichinopoli, and which was stolen by a Frenchman, who escaped with his prize to Persia, and who, fearful of being discovered, was glad to dispose of his ill-gotten gear for a sum of about two thousand pounds sterling. The man who bought the stone, a Jewish merchant, sold it to one Shafras, an astute Armenian, for twelve thousand pounds sterling. Shafras had conceived the idea that by carrying the stone to Russia, he would obtain from the Empress Catharine the Great a princely sum for it. How to travel in safety with the stone, the theft of which had of course been discovered and proclaimed, became a grave consideration. It was too large to swallow, and no mode of concealment presented itself to Shafras that seemed secure from discovery. The way in which he solved the problem was remarkable. He made a deep incision in the fleshy part of his left leg, in which he inserted the stone, closing the wound carefully by sewing it up with silver thread. When the wound healed, the Armenian merchant set out on his travels quite boldly, and although more than once apprehended, rigorously searched, and even tortured a little, he was obdurate, and firmly denied having the stone in his possession. Having at length reached his destination, he asked from the Empress the sum of forty thousand pounds for the gem, an amount of money which Catharine was unable to raise at the moment. We next find the Armenian at Amsterdam with the intention of having his diamond cut. Here the stone was seen by Count Orloff, who determined to purchase it for presentation to his royal mistress, the Empress Catharine. The sum ultimately paid for the gem was about seventy thousand sterling in cash, together with an annuity of five hundred pounds, and a patent of nobility. Shafras flourished exceedingly, and died a millionaire. Such, in brief, is the story of the Orloff Diamond.

‘DOUBLEWORKS.’

A STORY OF ATHLONE.

Who has not heard of the old historic town on the Shannon called Athlone, believed by its inhabitants to be the exact centre of Ireland; celebrated at one time—for it has been now some years removed—for the old bridge built in the reign of Queen Bess, whose arms and monogram, E. R., were engraved on a stone built into a kind of monument on the parapet. Celebrated also for its old church bell, bearing in relief the inscription—THIS: FOR: ST: MARY’S: CHVRCH: IN: ATHLONE: 1683—this being the identical bell which, at six o’clock in the afternoon of the 30th of June 1691, clanged the signal for the attack on the forces of King James, commanded by the French general, St Ruth, and holding the castle, &c., by the troops of the Prince of Orange under Ginkell. The old house occupied by him as headquarters during the siege is still in existence, having the date of its erection, 1626, carved on the doorway. We might go on detailing many other things for which the old town is celebrated, but _cui bono_? Enough that it is celebrated in song as the residence of ‘The Widow Malone, Ochone!’

Often as we have been reminded of the existence of Athlone by hearing the above-mentioned humorous ditty trolled forth at mess by one of Ours, who, being a genuine son of the soil, was fully qualified to do it ample justice, it had never been our good fortune to cast eyes upon it until some forty years ago, when, one fine afternoon, we found ourselves, with some thousand or so other candidates for martial glory, marching gaily through the by no means sweet-smelling town, over the beautiful new bridge which spans the river, and under the walls of the ancient castle, to the merry strains of the _Lass o’ Gowrie_. These forty years are a long time to look back upon; many a long march under foreign suns have we made with the old regiment, and in many a stirring scene and hard-fought field have we accompanied it since then; but somehow our memory recalls few things more vividly than the appearance of that long column of dusty, travel-stained men, who were finishing their hot day’s march that summer afternoon, tramping along briskly and cheerily to the old familiar air of the regimental quick step.

We quickly settled down in our new quarters, and before long, had formed many pleasant acquaintances, all only too delighted to show us every civility in their power; and jolly nights at mess followed fishing and boating parties during the summer, while, as the days began to shorten, there was good hunting and shooting; and dinner-parties and dances were by no means unfrequent.

In most garrison towns in which we have been quartered in Ireland, there were generally one or two peculiar hangers-on loafing about the barracks, queer nondescript bipeds, ever ready to run messages all over the country, or carry a fishing-basket or a game-bag, who eked out a precarious existence by tips from the officers and others who employed them, and picking up odd meals at the different barrack-rooms of the men. Athlone was not singular in this respect; and you constantly met, shambling across the barrack square, at a kind of half-trot, or lurking in rear of the officers’ quarters, an odd, half-witted, but quite harmless creature, who went by the curious appellation of ‘Doubleworks.’ Who gave him that name, or whence it was derived, we are unable to say; we only know that he answered to it, and we had it from the regiment in whose place we had come. There was a kind of sporting air about this poor creature; he always wore an old hunting-cap and a shooting-suit, evidently the gift of some former patron of far burlier proportions than the poor attenuated frame which they now enveloped; and an ancient pair of Wellington boots, much down at heel, into which the ends of the trousers were shoved, completed the costume, which, however, was varied on hunting-days, when the hounds met in the square or neighbourhood of the barracks, when, in honour of the occasion, an aged and much stained, once scarlet hunting-coat took the place of the shooting-jacket.