A. Ellman

“ Barnato then went to the office and asked for two circle seats. “Very sorry, sir, but all are gone. I can give you two side stalls if they will do.” A huge smile broke over Barnato’s face. “I have not come prepared to pay for stalls,” said he. “Very well, sir. You can have stalls for circle prices.” Barnato took his vouchers for the seats, went out to the man, gave him the whole five shillings change, and, turning to Cohen, said: “Now that is what I call finance.”
This is how Kimberley acquired its name. In 1871 the farm “Vooruitzigt” was proclaimed as a diamond digging. ”

“ Many years ago a certain farmer in the Cape Colony engaged an overseer. The latter was an excellent worker, but was more intimate with the farmer’s wife than the farmer thought proper, having often found them sitting together on the sofa. The farmer then went to the magistrate for advice. “You should give your wife a good talking to,” advised the magistrate. The farmer only too well knew the futility of acting on this advice, and said so. “Well, then,” said the magistrate, “get rid of the overseer.” “That I can’t do,” objected the farmer, “because he is such a good worker.” ”

“ Barnato himself gained a high reputation in Kimberley as Matthias. A very well-known South African was making a first visit to England and his friends, wishing to show him all the sights, booked seats for the Lyceum on a night when Irving was producing “The Bells.” “Oh, let’s go somewhere else,” said the colonist; “I have seen Barney Barnato as Matthias, and I do not want to see anyone else.” Barnato told this story to Irving, and the great actor replied: “Such is fame.”
The military instinct is very strong amongst the Zulus. ”

“ Bramwell Booth, the son of General Booth, he said to him: “Ah! you and the General are right; you have the best of me after all. I am trying to make new countries; you are making new men.”
[52]
In 1896, whilst Dr. Jameson was in England and in failing health, Lord Grey, then Administrator of Rhodesia, received a telegram to the effect that Groote Schuur, Rhodes’s beautiful home in Cape Town, had been burnt down with most of its contents. Mr. Rhodes was then in Rhodesia; but Lord Grey, knowing how intensely Mr. Rhodes was attached to his home, shrank from breaking the news to him. ”

“ A Free Stater was once charged before the Circuit Court with the crime of murder, and the evidence against him was strong. Now a certain trader, for commercial reasons, was anxious that the accused should be discharged, but did not think that this was possible in view of the evidence, but he thought that a verdict [13] of culpable homicide might be obtained by a judicious pulling of the strings. A friend of the trader’s was one of the jurymen, and him he induced to stick out for a verdict of culpable homicide. ”

“ The man heard of this, and coming up to him said:—“I hear you have been talking about me?” “Yes; I want my money.” “Well, here is your £10, and don’t talk about me any more.” A short time afterwards the same man asked Barnato for £25. “No, can’t do it,” was the reply. “Why not? I don’t owe you anything.” “I know you don’t, but you’ve disappointed me once, and I won’t risk another disappointment.”
About the year 1877, Sir Charles Warren was travelling in a post-cart from Cape Town to Kimberley and had as a fellow-passenger a very taciturn young man who was diligently studying his prayer-book. ”

“ B. I. Barnato, Mr. Seymour says that one evening Mr. Barnato and Mr. Louis Cohen went to the Court Theatre, London. No seats had been booked; Barnato, as usual, had no money on him, and Louis Cohen had only a sovereign. Barnato borrowed this, saying that he would engineer the other shilling for their stalls somehow. Under the portico of the theatre was a man not quite blind, but with defective sight, who solicited charity. Barnato turned to Cohen and said:—“Do you mind, Lou, if we go to the circle instead of the stalls?” “Oh, no; just as you please.” ”

“ In the early days at Barberton there was a digger well known as “Charlie the Reefer.” He was a successful digger, and soon after his arrival at De Kaap he came into town with a bagful of nuggets, which he exchanged for sovereigns at the Bank. He then proceeded to the Landdrost’s office and said to the astonished official that he wished to deposit ten pounds.
“What is that for?” asked the official.
“To pay my fine.”
Nothing was known of such a fine at the Landdrost’s office. “Oh, that’s all right,” exclaimed the digger, “I am a careful man; I always pay my fines in advance. ”

“ With certain troops sent to quell a Kaffir rising in the Cape in 1875, was a staff officer who was wearing one of the recently introduced spike helmets. On seeing him, an old native said he knew which of the soldiers would be most successful with the rebels, pointing out the officer with the helmet, and adding: “A pretty ramming he will give them.”
[10]
Years ago, when everything from South Africa was looked upon in England as strange, an enterprising American conceived the idea of bringing home a party of Kaffirs to astonish the citizens of London. ”

“ Before reaching the course, Barnato returned the sharps their money, saying: “Here, it is bad enough for you chaps to have lost your railway fare. I don’t want your money, but don’t mark Barney Barnato down for a mug again.”
In the early days of the Diamond Fields, when the evils resulting from an uncontrolled supply of liquor to natives were rampant, the following lines appeared in a Kimberley paper:
The best of all methods, so others maintain,
To free them from ignorance’s yoke,
And enable them civilised freedom to gain,
Is simply to give them Cape Smoke ”

“ Rhodes once received a letter from an educated native, which contained the following passage:—
“I never forgotten the well-treatment I received from you at Queenstown. I consider you my father, and beg to inform you that I want to come and work for you at Cape Town.”
It is evident, says Sir Lewis Michell, that employment was given, for the letter is endorsed, in the handwriting of Rhodes:—“The faithful native! He worked a week, but found household duties beneath his dignity.”
There is a certain type of man in South Africa whose cry is: “Ah, you should have seen it before the war!” ”

“ Whilst the buildings were in course of erection Melk was visited by Governor Tulbagh. “Mr. Melk,” said the Governor, “when I pass by that church which [47] is building I shall shut the eye nearest it.” “Sir,” was the reply, “God Himself will close the eyes of the man who may not look at His building.”
The late Mr. “Barney” Barnato was an excellent actor. On one occasion he was playing the part of the auctioneer in “The Octoroon” in the old Theatre Royal, Kimberley, and in the auction scene was holding the whole attention of the house, all silent, spell-bound. ”

“ Once there was a slump in Johannesburg, and a deputation from the Rand went to interview President Kruger in Pretoria. “Times are bad,” they said, and it was not their fault. The Government must do something for them. ”

“ Whereupon the Proctor apologised for what he supposed to be his mistake, and Cecil Rhodes escaped unfined.
Mr. Louis Cohen, one of Mr. Barney Barnato’s earliest partners on the Diamond Fields, says that there was one man on the Fields whose business they both envied. He seemed to have a regular and large connection, [20] and made constant rounds, riding one old yellow, rather lame, pony. The partners tried to follow him to see which way he went, but without avail. One day Barnato said to Cohen: “That chap —— has a rare good connection; we must get hold of a bit of it somehow.” ”

“ The partners bought the pony, with the successful results anticipated by Barnato. “I wonder,” says Mr. Cohen, “whether any other man than Barnato would have been so closely observant as to notice that the pony finished his rounds without guidance [21] and so probably knew all the usual stopping places of each day.” ”

“ Early one morning Sir Christopher came to the telegraph office at Paarl Station to send a wire ordering the arrest of a man who was subsequently hanged for an atrocious wife murder. The clerk in charge was Mr. David MacKay Wilson, who afterwards became a prominent official in the service of the South African Republic, and the author of “Behind the Scenes in the Transvaal.” Mr. Wilson counted the words and announced that the cost of the message would be four shillings and six pence. Sir Christopher replied that he had no money on him, but would pay later. ”

“ A German trader once presented Panda, King of the Zulus, with a watch. “What is the use of it?” said he. “To tell where the sun is? We can see it; when cloudy we remain in our huts; at night we sleep. ”

“ Barnato was one of the first on the Diamond Fields to realise that the blue ground was far richer than the yellow surface ground, although an opinion to the contrary was held by the majority of the diggers. ”

“ In the pre-war days in the Transvaal many of the higher positions in the public service were filled by men whose only qualification was that they were friends of the “powers that were.” An old friend of President Kruger had fallen on evil days, and came to the President for help. ”

“ But Barnato soon convinced him that he was quite serious. “Look here,” said he, “I’ve seen him come back from his rounds three days running, and he always stops first at Hall’s canteen. Mind this, however, he does not guide the pony to the place, but just sits still all the while with loose rein, and the pony stops of his own accord. Now, it is my firm conviction that all day long he rides just the same way, and that the pony knows all the stopping places. I’ve known this for some days, but it didn’t help so long as he had the pony ”

“ We fraternised, of course, at once, and amongst the questions asked and answered as to prospects of business, theatre accommodation, etc., [59] we learnt that Brough had with him a quantity of scenery and props which he did not want, but had been unable to sell at Johannesburg. At that moment Mr. “Barney” Barnato drove up on his way back to Kimberley, and at once joined us. He was always a good friend to the profession, and out there with the heavy travelling expenses between the mining camps, the hard work, and the other uncertainties, we often wanted such a friend then. ”

“ When asked to explain, he [8] said: “Do I not know that all your artisans work well from Tuesday to Friday, and then all get drunk, and their Monday’s work is worth nothing at all? Never show me a Monday gun again.”
When the Reform prisoners were confined in the Pretoria Gaol they were frequently visited by the late Mr. B. I. Barnato, and on the occasion of one of his visits he chaffed them about the position that they had found themselves in, remarking that they had tried to play a game of poker with the Transvaal Government on a “Colley Thumper” hand. ”

“ Between the Chief Rabbi and the Chief Justice I stood in a very awkward position.”
Sir Starr Jameson’s power of inspiring affection amongst those with whom he has been brought into contact is exemplified in the following anecdote. His biographer (Mr. G. Seymour Fort) , three days after the Raid, was buying fruit from a stall in Pretoria, and selected a particular bunch of grapes. “No, sir,” the woman replied, “you can’t have that; I am keeping the best I have for Dr. Jim,” and she went on to explain that he had cured her daughter in Kimberley, and that no sacrifice was too great for his sake. ”

“ The Officer Commanding the troops at Modder River issue an order prohibiting men from bathing in the river, and a flying sentry was stationed there to see that the order was not disobeyed. Noticing someone in the river, the sentry unceremoniously asked him to “clear out,” whereupon the bather, who happened to be an officer in the Guards, approached the bank in all his nakedness, and indignantly asked the man: “Can’t you see I am an officer?” ”

“ The acts of an able man can be foreseen when his surroundings are known, but who can fathom the folly of a fool? I would have given eight thousand pounds for those claims, and they went to a new comer for four hundred pounds!”
An actor who visited the Rand in the early days relates the following anecdote:—
“As we came to Johannesburg from Kimberley by coach, we met the returning coach at some miserable stopping place with an unpronouncable name, and found it crowded with Lionel Brough and his company. ”

“ Rhodes retorted:—“Of course, of course, they must soon take up our work; we must teach them what to do and what to avoid.”
On another occasion, his sentimental attachment to the Boers was the matter of a jest. “They were the voortrekkers,” he replied, “the real pioneers. They have always led the way. It is your business to see that the flag follows.”
In 1881, during the visit of a showman named Duval to Kimberley, the following conversation between a country Dutchman and a town Dutchman was overheard on the market square of that town:—“What large bills are those on the walls?” ”