No protestations of the unhappy young fellow availed him.

He was taken to Cape Town and condemned to seven years' imprisonment, the end of which he did not live to see, as he died a few months after he had been sentenced.
The story was freely current in South Africa; and, true or not, it is unquestionable that a large number of persons suffered in consequence of the I.D.B.Act, no more serious proofs being offered that they had taken or concealed diamonds than the fact that the stones had been found in unlikely places in their rooms.

Books without number have been written about the I.D.B.Act, a great number evidently evincing hatred or revenge against Mr.Rhodes and his lieutenants.
The famous De Beers Company acquired a position of overwhelming strength in the social, economical and political life of South Africa, where practically it secured control of everything connected with finance and industry.

De Beers built cold storage rooms, a dynamite factory, ice houses, interested itself in agriculture, fruit-growing, farming and cattle-breeding all over the Colony.

It managed to acquire shares in all the new mining enterprises whether in the Transvaal or in Rhodesia.
Politically it controlled the elections, and there were certain districts in the Cape Colony where no candidate unsupported by De Beers could hope to be elected to a seat in Parliament.