Rush!

Outside an office building, in Lichtenburg, South Africa, stood a solitary man. He wanted to enter an office but it was closed. Also he wanted to be first to enter, so he dared not leave the door lest someone take his place. So he waited, sleeping by his post at night, and nights were cold last week in Lichtenburg.

His fears that someone might try to take his place were not groundless. Other men soon joined him. They too slept in front of the door.

Then came more and more men until there were 1,500. Then the door opened, four days after the first man had arrived, for he, eager, had arrived four days early on purpose.

After the men had gone in the office, they ran out, rushed into automobiles, and recklessly sped toward fields near Lichtenburg.

Observers remarked that it looked like an old-time diamond rush in automobiles instead of on foot. They were right.

Instead of having fortune seekers wait at the barriers of the new diamond fields near Lichtenburg, and race on foot for their claims, the government made each contestant obtain a license in the city and then rush to the field. The distance obviously necessitated automobiles.