The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1888-01-05
sMUGGLERs' TRICKS.
Some ef the willy Tricks Of the smug.
glers ON the st. Lawrence River.

Some ef the WHY Tricks Of the Snug.
glsrs ON the 81. Lawrence River.
A correspondent Of tho Chicago
Times writes from Thousand Islands,
N. Y: "There was an old man here
some years ago OF the name of Gregg;
he's dead and gone now, and has left
no relatives, so it won't hit any one
to let out on him." said q river boat
man recently. "But when you talk
about genius as a smuggler, he was
right there. He took to it from the
first. He was rocked in q smuggled
cradle, and dosed with smuggled medi-
cine, and so it grew into him. I'll give
you q sample. You know in the winter
about here, the rivers freeze up solid so
that teams can 60 all over from the
lake to the rapids, and when the mer-
curry gets down among the twen-
ties it makes things uncomfortable
for green hands if they happen
to be revenue officers. But this
sort of winter weather was Just
the kind that old man Gregg liked,
and it was cold day when they nab
bed him. You could make q sure
guess that every snow-storm would
see more or less brandy brought over,
and the way he fixed it was this:
Knowing that an ordinary team
would be seen on the ice when q long
way of, he always started out with q
white horse, sleigh painted the same
color, and wearing a whiterubber coat
and hat, SO that on the ice he looked
like q big snow heap, only for the mo-
ton. They say that the officers of. en-
passed him SO near that he could here
them breathing.
"Once when the old man was taken
sick some one went to his place and in
fooling around in the barn found four
or five thousand yards of rubber pip
ing. One line smelt of kerosene and
the other of liquor. TWAS concluded
that he had tried to force kerosene
into Canada through one pipe and to
draw Canadian brandy into the United
States with the other. It was q big
scheme, but guess it didn't work.
One day the old man was seen haul
ing ice on the river. He was coming
up from Chimney Island. Up he goes
to his ice house, unloads, and
starts off for another load.
One of the officers thought it was
queer for him to 60 so far for ice when
he had it right along his own door,
yard; SO he hoped on the sled and
they started off together. Fhe old
man gave him a ride down to Chip
pewa Bay, then over to the other side,
covering about forty miles in all, with
the thermometer down to ten degrees
below zero. When the officer got home
that night he was so stiff he nearly
broke in two when he tried to get of
the sled. He said that old Gregg was
the most particular man he ever saw.
He'd taken block here and there up
and down the river. But there were
people that knew the old man dodge,
which was to have plugs of brandy
frozen into snow and ice, and cut into
blocks and piled so that no one would
suspect. it in the world. Some loads
of ice would clear the old man $50 or
500 in brandy.
Gin the old mans time, and not SO
many years ago." continued the
speaker, ''the boatmen had plenty of
lodges to get ahead of the officers
with. One man used to come in with
big fat fish so often that one of the
officers got after him. An officer came
down one day, and, while looking at
the fish, took up an oar and hit e. big
muskallonge crack. Then there was
a crack, and the smell of smuggled
brandy rose on the air. The chap had
had bottle of good old brandy in the
fish. Talk about peach brandy; that
was muskallonge brandy"