GREAT DIAMOND ROBBERY AT THE CAPE.

Kumara Times, Issue 1131, 14 May 1880, Page 4

GREAT DIAMOND ROBBERY AT THE CAPE.

[EBOM THE CAPE ARGUS, makch 23.]

The leading event of the week hae been quite sensational in its character. At an early hour on Tuesday morning, March 16, it was discovered that the greatest robbery ever known in South Africa had been perpetrated at the General Post Office in Cape Town. The attendant circumstances, so far as they are publicly known, where as follows:—The Kim berley post, which is timed to arrive in Cape Town an hour before the departure of the English mail, did not reach here on Tuesday, March 9, until after the steamer's departure, having been delayed in its passage down country by the state of the roads. The diamond packages in the Kimberley bag were 29 in number, and these were placed in charge of the clerk in the registered letter department, by whom, for the purpose of safe custody, they were put into one or two patent Bafeß provided for use in the office. There they remained until the following Monday, when they were transferred to another bag, made up for despatch by the Pretoria on the following day. According to the account given by the registered letter clerk, he found that the safes would not hold all the mails in the department, and he consequently left the bag containing the diamond packages under the counter. On Tuesday morning it was discovered that the bag had been opened and rifled of all its contents, the boxes containing the diamonds and the wadding in which they were enveloped being found in the main sorting room, where the thief had evidently taken his booty, in order that he might finish the operation without fear of disturbance. A stevedore's hook and the opener of a sardine tin were all the traces that the burglar left behind, and as yet no clue to his identity seems to have been obtained. Over and above the startling negligence chargeable to the clerk in the registered letter office, the most extraordinary facilities seem to have been offered for the commision of this robbery. The outer door of the Post-office was left open at least a couple of hours after the several departments had concluded the business of the day, and there were three alternative roads of approach to the office containing the precious ?tones none of them offering any obstacle to burglarious intent. A ventilator over the door of the compartment in which the diamonds had been placed was left unfastened, and thus ingress was secured without the lease show of difficulty. The value of the stolen jewels has been variously estimated between LIOO,OOO, the amount first Btated, and L 20,000, which is said to be the estimate of the postal authorities. The mean of these two amounts would probably be near the mark. The loss will fall principally upon the banks and underwriters, who insure the safe transit of diamonds, and it is feared that their natural chagrin may take the form of largely increased charges by way of premium. An official investigation has been already held, but the result has not been allowed to transpire. This gigantic robbery is but one of a series of such crimes lately reported. A few weeks back the sum of L4OOO was abstracted from the railway engineer's chest at Queen's Town, and no clue Uas yet been obtained. Still more recently a Natal butcher in a large way of business, while Btaying at Harrismith, in the Free State, the rendezvous of deserters from the British army hi the Transvaal, was robbed of LSOOO in gold. [A Melbourne paper publishes a cable message stating that intelligence has been received from the Cape to the effect that the perpetrator of the robbery has been arrested. He is said to be one of the officials connected with the department.]

The Pall Mall Gazette reiterates an opinion, which it holds with no less anxiety than conviction, that one of the moßt important of all facts underlying the future of England is this: Through the extraordinary develop, ment of the grain-growing industries abroad, and operation of an irresistible system of free trade, and the multiplication and aggrandisement of Foreign navies, the people of this country a'e exposed to great peril of starvation, or panic of starvation, in the event oi any hostile alliance against us; which does not seem impossible as things go. The following is the result of the Auckland Totalisator swindle :—Henry Richardson, James Corbett, llichard James Feltus, and Leonard Adams, were cbarsed before the Auckland Magistrate on the 29th nit., under the Vagrant Act, with playing with a tota'isator at a game of chance, on the Ellerslie racecourse. The totalisator was produced in Court. The charge against Feltus was withdrawn, as he was engaged as clerk. Francis Short, deposed that he pai i 10s for a ticket on King Quail. There were three other tickets. He went to watch the race, and King Quail won. When he returned to the totalisator the proprietor offered him a fourteenth share. A dispute ensued, and the proprietor said that someone had altered the numbers. > ventnally he got his Ll2. William Booth, bootmaker, corroborated this evidence. William Robert and K. Churton saw only four up when the race was run. Feltuß deposed that Richardson received the money. Gorbett worked the machine, and witness stamped the tickets. Fourteen subscribed to King Quail. The Cench sentenced each prisoner to one month's imprisonment with hard labor. No fewer -thai 13 grain laden steamships were lost in the year 1879, chiefly in the last four months of the year; six of them so utterly that they have never either been seen or heard of from the day they sailed, the Beraina, the Joseph Pease, the Surbiton, the Telford, the Homer, and the Zanzibar. The men who perished in these vessels were 26, 26, 22, 22, 30, and 36 respectively. The total number of grain laden vessels, including steamers, lost since Ist January, 1875, to December, 1879, was 60—an annual average of 12. These losses nearly all arise from the ■kffti of thecargo.