The Globe-republican., 1894-03-09
OF INCONSISTENCIES.
Good Stories Related by q Secret
Service Officer.
The Governments "Fraud Fund" and How
Il u Expended-HoW Illicit Whisky Il
Mads-A HeD.Pecked Hua-
bands Plea.
Especial Washington Letter.l

Especial Washington Letter1
''There is an appropriation of $50, 900
this year called the fraud fund. said
an agent of the treasury secret service
to-day. "The money is special con-
tingent fund for the purpose of pay
ing hired informers, and 1t is very
good investment, too"
A party of personal friends having
lunch in the senate restaurant were
greatly entertained by the secret serv-
ice man, who gave us many glimpses
behind the scenes. He says that the
department detective force is kept
pretty busy by the internal revenue
bureau, but does not confine its labors
to any one branch of the department.
The principal duty of these Hawk
shaws is to ferret out illicit distilling,
which is reckoned to cost Uncle Sam
$500, 900 year in the mountain regions
of the southern states alone. The OFF,
GERS are usually led to the stills secret
~ by persons acquainted with their
location, $50 being given the guide for
each whisky factory thus made known.
Such informers, who are mysteriously
designated in the treasury accounts
as form 10 men," are very commonly
murdered in revenge, as was the case
with whole family massacred by the
notorious moonshiner fanatic Sims and
his gang. These guides are known as
''form 10 men. because the accounts
originally turned in by secret service
agents were made out upon official
blanks known as Form TO-" 1t is
very risky business for them, but they
are usually poor men to whom $50
looks big enough to be small for
tune, while 500 is regarded as COM
petence for life. Consequently they
can be bribed into the service of the
govern. cnt, in spite of the fact that
BLOODY vendetta may follow.
1t makes little difference whether
the Illicit distillers are caught or not.
trouble follows as the night succeeds
the day. If the distiller c.capes the
raiding party, he makes it his business
to kill the informer. If he is captured,
some member of his family or some in
innate friend will take up the cause.
Sometimes it has happened that in
formers have gone unscathed for
of years, until the distiller is
released from the penitentiary, when
he makes it his first business to kill
the man who betrayed him.
The business of detecting distillers
of moonshine whisky is also dangerous
to the secret service and revenue
agents. 1t is matter of fact that
during three consecutive years twenty
five of them were killed and forty-nine
wounded. They are obliged literally
to take their lives in their own hands
while travelling about among the rocky
Businesses where moonshine distilling
finds it's chosen retreats. In that Sec
ton government officers are regarded
with such hostility that to wear blue
is to seriously risk being shot
at. They can Dever tell at what mo-
ment, while on the road, fusillade of
bullets may greet them from ambush.
1t is always in some inaccessible spot
that the unlawful whisky mill is to be
whether perched upon cliff,
easily defended by two or three per-
sons against score of assailants, Sc
Guided in a cavern under ground or
hidden amid thick woods in a defile
between hills SO lofty that the curling
smoke tells no tale to the keen-eyed
hunters after forbidden alcoholic slim
ulantS.
They hate rs as the people of the
sO,1th hated Yankee soldiers during
the war;" said the detective, land that
reminds me of story. A northern
man was asking southern man to tell
him just exactly how the people down
there regarded the Yankee soldiers
and received this parable for his an
swer. The southerner said: After
church on Sunday n little boy in Geor-
gia asked his mother if the preacher
was in earnest in saying that we