The Anderson Intelligencer

The Champion Diamond Robber---Born a Gentleman, Bred a Thief.

The statement concerning young Harding, who stole the mail-bag from the New Rush (South Africa) post office, containing four or five hundred thousand dollars' worth of diamonds besides a large amount of ready money and checks, has been given briefly heretofore. The following account of the young man is calculated to "point a moral :"

The culprit is the younger son of a gentleman residing in Surrey, England. "To keep the elder brother up in state," the younger was sacrificed. This particular Harding was a gentleman's son. and though primogeniture absolutely demanded that his father should not spoil the paternal estate by giving him any part of it or furnishing him the means of "getting on" in business out of its revenues, an education suitable for a gentleman must be given to him.

When he left college young Harding was fitted to shine as a man of leisure, but not to succeed as a man of business. Indeed, it seems that to go into business at all was never contemplated by him. His father plainly never said, How is this boy when grown to manhood to support himself? Whether Harding had no desire to enter the church or the army our meagre account does not inform us. But certain it is that if his family had influence enough to procure him a position in either they failed to exert it, and permitted him to drift on purposeless. It will be thought by many readers that he should have become the architect of his own fortunes; that he should have struck out for himself, as the world owed him a living and should be compelled to pay its debt. This line of reasoning fails to take into consideration the peculiar social atmosphere in which this young man was born. His circumstances and his education were all against his doing anything for himself.

Harding's idleness soon became intolerable to himself. He solicited permission, which was gladly granted we may be sure, to go to South Africa. Perhaps he had vague visions of making a fortune by digging diamonds. Such a hope was proper enough in its way at a distance, but when he reached the spot it soon came to naught. Harding did nothing--could get nothing to do. He realized fully the Scriptural description of another person. "He could not dig, and to beg he was ashamed." But unfortunately he was not ashamed to steal. He filched £100 from his room-mate, a Mr. Beauclerck, and left Cape Town for the diamond fields.' While there he learned that a warrant was out for his arrest on a complaint for theft. What could he do? He was standing in the vicinity of the post office, and the postmaster and his assistant leaving the building before his eyes suggested a way of escape. A mail-bag would surely contain one hundred pounds! It is robbing Peter to pay Paul; but then Peter, here meaning the public, can' better afford to lose the amount than Paul, and besides, no one will know the robber of the mail-bag--this was the illusion--while every one would hear of the thief of one hundred pounds when produced in court. Harding reasoned quite speciously that he would, by pursuing such a course, keep his own body out of jail and save his family from the resulting disgrace.

This "gentleman" robber appears to be a man in many respects of fine organization. No Hamlet is he. What his head commands his hands execute, and at the moment. He did not procrastinate. He did not even wait to see whether any one was watching him. He advanced to the window of the post office, broke a pane of glass, opened the sash, and, without the slightest trepidation, took out the mail-bag. and having concealed it, walked off. He was not in error as to finding one hundred pounds --he found more than a thousand when he opened the bag in his tent at Du Toit's Pan. But he found in the bag what he had not thought of. Two thousand three hundred and seventy-four diamonds of all weights, from eighty-nine carats down, and all degrees of brilliancy, were spread before his gaze. Meeting Mr. Beauclerck, Harding, after at first denying the theft, offered to settle the matter by paying £200. This the former refused, as he wanted only his money. Harding counted out one hundred guineas, and this circumstance led to the suspicion which finally stamped him as the diamond robber. He worked on at Du Toit's Pan for some time, but finally left for Cape Town, after having concealed his diamonds in the barrel of his gun. His arrest just before leaving in the Syria for England, and his bearing when arraigned--cool, without effrontery --have been described. This most remarkable robbery furnishes another reason, if one were needed, against the absurd system which educates a man for a position which it gives him no fair opportunity honestly to fill.