The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-05-18
THE OIL WELL MAN.
How He Tapped the Standard Pipes
and What Came of 1t.
From the Buffalo Express

ayes, )" said the oil man, "the love the
people of Pennsylvania have for the
Standard Oil Company is remarkable for
its scarcity. The big monopoly is hated
from one end of the state to the other.
Let me tell you story that illustrates
this.
"You probably know how the Standard
pipes its oil through TO tidewater Well,
there was a man who lived on a certain
part Of one of their pipe lines. He had a
| couple of wells. They were little,
two. barrel affairs, and, although he
shot them and did everything he
| could to increase the flow, he was
day from them. One night he was sit
ting in his boiler-house figuring out how
long it would be, at the rate he was going,
before he would land in the poorhouse.
He made it about three weeks. and his
proximity TO ruin startled him. He be-
gan to hustle. He had TO have money,
and the only way he knew to get money
was to get oil. He could get no oil from
his wells, and he had nothing with which
to buy leases. He must have oil, so he
tapped the Standards pipeline.
HE was an ingenious man, and when
he had made up his mind 10 make the tap
he studied out way TO make it that was
hard to detect. He worked for few
weeks and got everything in shape
Then he dropped couple of laundering
big shots into his measly little wells and
announced next day that he had struck
a new reservoir of oil and that his wells
had begun TO do fifteen barrels day
each. He enlarged his tanks and sat
down and saw thirty barrels of the
Standards property come to him each
twentv-four hours.
Things ran along like this for six
months. People thought it mighty queer
that those two wells should keep doing
fifteen barrels day, and number were
sunk in that vicinity without results. The
Standard smelt mouse. They sent pipe
man after pipeman along the line, but no
one could find the tap. Their gaugers
would report such and such a quantity of
oil in a tank, and when the oil got TO the
other end it would invariably be short
The monopolists were crazy and our
friend with the two barrel wells began to
wear diamonds. Finally the Standard
people decided TO get at the bottom of the
anair. They were losing too much oil.
BY this time the tap had been in success
full operation for year. They sent Jim
Robinson. their head detective, out with
instructions TO find IL if it took another
year.
Robinson worked along the line, TAX
ing his time and doing things thoroughly.
Finally he arrived at our friends wells.
He got in rather late and asked TO be put
up over night. He got the mans
pumper in good humor by giving him a
big drink of whisky, and then he init
mated that he was looking for a good
place TO make a trap. The pumper was
suspicious. II took good many drinks
to get him in proper shape, but Robinson
who had the capacity of regiment, did
the job, and the pumper finally told him
that the only way TO make trap was TO
make one like his boss, which had been
in successful operation for year and
more.
This was Robinson's cue. He waited
until morning and then had the whole
outfit arrested The tap was discovered.
and it was shown that the company had
been robbed of an enormous quantity of
oil. That didn't cut any figure with the
jury, however, for they saw an oppor-
tunity to soak the STANDARD, and they ac-
quilted the Taper and censured the com
pany for placing temptation in honest
mems way and for keeping down the price
OF oil The Standard people were wild,
but that was all the good it did them.
The Taper gave his wells away, and is
now in business in New York"