THE DIAMOND EYE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 November 1939, Page 6

THE DIAMOND EYE

SMUGGLING DEVICE. How diamonds were smuggled out of a South African mine was revealed recently bv a London glass eye maker. Mr Godfrey Taylor. Not long ago he was asked to send out to South Africa several artificial eyes, specially modolelled with a hole behind each pupil.. Now he has been told that the glass eyes were used to smuggle diamonds out of a mine. Mr Taylor said: "Recently the man who had ordered the glass eyes arrived in this country and came to me for an artificial eye without a hole in it. Then he explained. He said he had been working in a diamond mine for some years, where everyone was searched for smuggled diamonds before he left. No one, however, ever thought of asking him to remove his glass eye. Hence the holes—to hide the diamonds in. He told me he had now made enough money to retire." Mr Godfrey Taylor works with his mother, who closely guards the secrets of many famous people whose friends do not know they have glass eyes. She once was visited by two high priests from a Far Eastern temple who wanted eyes for their idol. Her husband. Mr Gustav Taylor, once made a glass eye for a lion.