Daily globe., 1883-07-23
[Republished from Sundays edition.
BONDED WHISKY.

The Rulings of the Treasury Department
Relative to the Whisky Exported to
Canada.
WASHINGTON. July 21.-The secretary of
the treasury has addressed a letter to the
collector OF customs at New York in re-
gard te the expectation of bonded whisky,
of which the following is copy:
A Boston firm has addressed letter to
this department in which they state that
house in Boston exported some months
since, in bond, to Hamilton, Bermuda, a
quantity of whisky of domestic manufac-
ture which was returned to your port in
January last, where it now remains in a
bonded warehouse. They have agreed
with the holder to buy 200 barrels of this
whisky delivered in Boston in bond, and
they ask what course may lawfully be taken
in the premises. Guided by the opinion
of the United States attorney general this
department holds that articles of growth,
product or manufacture of the United
States, when exported and reimported un-
der section $500, United States revised
statutes, are not within the purview of our
customs warehousing system, and that
they cannot lawfully be stored under the
laws creating that system. This will ap-
ply to distilled spirits manufactured in the
United States, once exported, and reim-
ported under the section above cited. Upon
the landing of such spirits the collector
of customs will exact payment of duty
equal to the tax imposed by the internal
revenue laws, and they will
not permit them to be elect
ed for storage in bonded
warehouse, and on failure ofiother means
to obtain duty they will seize and hold
them and assume all the legal expenses of
their action. In the case now before the
department and spoken of in the begin
ming of this letter warehouse bond has
sometimes been taken in good faith, under
a mistaken but innocent belief in the
legality and regularity thereof, and be-
cause of the legality and regularity there
of the spirits to which that bond applies,
may be dealt with as an exceptional case
in accordance with the condition bond.
(Slgned) CHAs. FoLGER, Sec'y.
The commissioner of internal revenue
has issued circular in regard to gauging
spirits in small packages and at abnormal
temperature, which provides as follows:
That hereafter when casks or packages
having capacity not exceeding twenty
gallons wine measure are gauged for entry
IN the 0istiilery or warehouse or IN a fruit
distillery, a percentage of one-half a gal
Ion shall not be allowed except when the
vantage reaches one full half -gallon-that
is, unless thereis actually one full half
gallon out of the package. The same rule
will apply as to allowing vantage on one
gallon. That is, no vantage of
excess of one-half gallon will
be allowed unless the actual
vantage reaches full gallon when howev-
Or the packages of this class are so con-
structed that their capacity must be as
certained from their dimensions and con-
tain fraction of gallon other than one
half gallon on actual vantage, it shall
be required in such packages equal to such
fraction, if it be less than one half gal
Ion, or if it exceeds one-half the actual
vantage it shall be required to be equal to
the excess of the fraction above one-half
gallon before such packages shall be
gauged in addirion to the vantage requir-
ed. In such cases further vantage of one
half gallon will be allowed when desired
provided the additional vantage fully equal
one half gallons when the packages are
used, the capacity of which cannot be as
certalned by ordinary methods
but by use only of rod
proper to determine the dimensions, the
gauger must ascertain the precise dimen-
sions at inside measurement, and from
these when obtained he must compute the
cubic contents of the package in gallons
and fractions, if any, of gallon. Gaugers
will decline to gauge casks or packages
having a capacity not exceeding twenty
gallons, wine measure, and which contains
spirits the temperature of which has been
artifcially changed, until the spirits have
either reached the point varying not more
than ten degrees Fahrenheit from the
standard temperature, sixty degrees
Fahrenheit, or point varying not more
than FIVE degrees Fahrenheit from the ex-
isting temperature of the open air.