The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1868-11-10
The Tobac Q Rsng-Treptdzation
among its Members I'm Cincinnati.

From the Cincinnati Gazette, November's.
The examination into the returns of the
tobacco manufacturers Of this city has been
going forward steadily. One good result
has been obtained. There has been q
very large increase in the tobacco returns
for September over those Of August H.
2321h pounds was the amount returned by
the nineteen plug manufacturers for the
First District Of Ohio during the month of
August. In the next month (September)
there were only seventeen factories at work,
the establishment of A. b. Gaines having
been closed, and that Of Preston & Co. not
being operated. And yet those seventeen
factories returned to the assessors Office
l59, 746 pounds, being gain over the pre-
cedinp month of nearly 100 per cent. One
firm returned in August 6, l26 pounds, in
September 4O,817. Another returned in
AUGUST 8,74l, and the next month "a, 463.
The third returned in August 2,l62, and
the following month i2,43O.
There is but one reasonable hypothesis
on which to account for this great increase.
The energy and zeal Of the Government Of
ficials threw the ring into great excitement
and CONSERVATION. They saw that some
thing must be done while so much activity
was being displayed, and accordingly they
began to make true, or, at any rate, ap-
proximately true, returns. The consequence
was that l59, 746 pounds were returned in
September, against 70 ,2321a in August. In
other words, in single month some S35, 900
or more was saved to the Government.
Another good result that has been OBJ
tanned Dealers in tobacco have begun to
array themselves on the side of the Govern
ment. They have been made to see what
they have been doing in purchasing these
fraudulent goods. Hitherto they have
thought that they were getting their goods
cheap when they purchased them for forty
or fifty cents pound. But little refec-
ton would have shown them, first, that
goods sold at so low price were fraudulent,
and were liable to seizure, though held
by innocent parties, and that this risk made
the goods, even at forty cents, much too
dear to be profitable. Fraudulent goods,
indeed, are too dear at any price. They
saw, in the second place, that the tax per
pound was put by the manufacturers into
their own pockets. In other words, thirty
two cents on each pound Of tobacco bought
was the sum which the low buyers were
giving to these Government defrauders.
The defrauders, dealers begin to under
stand, are not selling tobacco cheaply. On
the contrary, they are putting into their
own pockets larger price per pound on
their fraudulent goods than honest dealers
can obtain for their honest goods. An
honest dealer sells his tobacco at seventy
cents per pound. Deduct the tax, and
there is left thirty-eight cents for the net
price. One Of these defrauders sells his
tobacco for fifty cents per pound, and the
entire amount he keeps himself, thus get
ting eighteen cents more per pound than
his honest neighbor.
That these tobacco frauds are gigantic in
extent, no one who is posted in the tobacco
business doubts. That they are committed
by men who are as bold as they are unscru-
pulous, there is no reason to disbelieve.
The other day the following dispatch from
st. Louis was published in the Commercial:
"Henry D. Christian, United States de-
tective, and witness in furnishing infor-
nation respecting frauds, was found dead
in an alley, last night, near Fifteenth
street, under suspicious circumstances " ;
and threats have been made by persons in
this city against men who were prominent
in conducting Investigations that are now
DrAorassinp