POLAND: Stomached Diamonds

Dark as the inside of an empty wine cask and reeking with the same stale smells is a certain evil subterranean cafe in Warsaw. Last week Polish detectives surrounded silently, peered down and into the place expectantly. They saw M. Aaron (“Diamond Jew”) Rubenstein in strange traffic with some two score creatures whose air was furtive, smugglerous.

Cuddled in many an upturned palm were diamonds. Shaken lovingly from soft, drawstring pouches they twinkled and tumbled in the hot light of three gas jets. The sight, the low babble of bidding, was evidence enough for detectives.

Boots kicked in cellar windows. Shoulders crashed open the door. Then, while detectives stumbled down steep rickety stairs or dropped in through windows, “Diamond Jew” Rubenstein and friends cupped palms to their mouths, leaned back, and amazingly swallowed diamonds. Uncut stones too big to swallow were flung madly anywhere—behind the bar, into corners, out windows.

Thorough frisking by detectives of their prey showed that all 42 of the creatures arrested lacked certificates showing that the legal taxes and import duties had been paid upon their diamonds. With anguished faces and painful stomachs, they watched while unswallowed diamonds to a total weight of 2,000 carats were swept and gathered up by the police.

Not classed as a mere creature, according to despatches, was M. Aaron (“Diamond Jew”) Rubenstein, who was recently employed by the Polish Government to appraise a shipment of onetime Tsarist diamonds sent for sale in Poland by the Soviet Government. Perhaps it was that service which secured for M. Rubenstein a private cell and communication with his lawyer, although the Polish prosecutor will endeavor to show that he is the head of an international ring of diamond smugglers. Reports that none of the swallowers were suffering more than a minor gripe, caused physicians to recall that sizable nuts & bolts, small spoons and open safety pins are not infrequently swallowed without fatality.