Whooping Diamonds

Wealth seemed to shimmer in the hot sunshine that poured last week upon a Union Jack unfurled from a tall staff at Grasfontein, South Africa.

When the flag should crumple down, 17,000 would-be diamond diggers would rush in a mad scrambling race to stake out diamond claims in a new field.

Oldtime prospectors grumbled They had no chance. The great diamond syndicates had hired professional runners who would distance the old fogies to richest diamond earth. . . .

Twenty minutes before the flag should have fallen the old prospectors made a rush. Whooping, they dashed through the thin police line, got the best dirt staked out before startled athletes could catch up.

Soon the Commissioner of Mines for South Africa declared the premature rush illegal, nullified all claims.

Johannesburg news organs hotly demanded that some other method than a foot race be used to apportion what promises to be a $5,000,000 field.