In order to evade the I.D.B. Laws, it was the custom among the buyers in Kimberley to give a “reward” of 25 per cent. to their native servants for each diamond they brought as a reputed find while working, “which,” as Dr. J. W. Matthews says in his book, “Incwadi Yami,” “was, of course, merely another mode of buying from natives without fear of detection.” This custom gave rise to the following lines, which appeared in a Kimberley paper some forty years ago:—
I would not be a digger. No,
Nor yet an I.D.B.
In digging oft your moneys go,
The other’s felony.
But then, upon the other hand,
I should be quite content
If I only was a nigger, and
Got 25 per cent.
I’d not be a shareholder, or