Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-07-05
CROOKED Wills "
The Tax in Connection With the In
crease in Illicit Distillation.
What the Forthcoming Report of the
Commissioner of Internal Revenue
VIII Show-North and South.

The forthcoming report OIL Inc commas
sioner of internal revenue will show an
enormous increase in Illicit distillation.
When the tax on distilled spirits was in
creased 20 cents per gallon new incen-
tive to fraud was added to that which
the internal revenue authorities had al
ready been compelled to constantly fight.
The temptation to cheat the government
was very great when the premium offered
was 400 per cent and was sufficient to
overcome the scruples of several hundred
people in the mountain regions of Ten
nessee Kentucky and the Carolinas, but
when another hundred per cent was added
it seems to have turned the scale with the
city people. Every man has his price,
it is said, and, while 400 per cent seems
to have been a satisfactory figure with the
noun taineers of the SOUTH the city people
did not yield to temptation until 500 per
cent was bid Then they fell, and the
"sleuths" of the inspectors division have
been compelled to give their attention to
the great cities. and especially to New
York and Brooklyn, ever since.
Possibly, too, an invention which came
along about the time of the passage of the
new law may have had something to do
with it. Just about the time the additional
tax was placed upon spirits a new device
came into the field which made 1t prac-
ticable to do an Illicit distflling business
in a much smaller space and with less
machinery and paraphernalia than for
merly.
A Portable still.
Some inventive genius, having more re-
gard for his own pocket than for that of
Uncle Sam or for the morals of his fellow
citizens, devised, year or ago, a small
portable still, incased in sheet iron, which
can be operated in a wonderfully small
space. 1t is very much like a small up
right engine and boiler in appearance,
and can be set UP in a cellar or small
apartment, out of sight and sound and
smell. For 1t is often by the smell that
the agents of the internal revenue service
Some of these trained men walking about
the streets and outskirts of New York or
Brooklyn, with keen olfactory nerves con-
stantly on the alert, often scent an il
licit still, and wetting finger and holding
1t up to determine the direction from which
the wind comes, trace and finally locate the
very spot whence ii emanateS. Sometimes
this is in the basement of big tenement
house; sometimes in a factory Of some
sort; sometimes connected with a dairy.
and more frequently beneath or in easy
reach Of sugar refinery.
The report to be turned in shortly after
the LIST of July will show an increase Of
p, obably 90 per cent of arrests for illicit
distiling. And, instead of only the names
of a few southern states figuring in the
list, those of the great states of New
York and Illinois and others at the north
Will appear in it. The seizures of Illicit
stills now run from 100 to 200 per month,
and for the year about to end will aggre-
gate nearly 1900.
Some Shrcwd Devices.
The average northern moonshner shows
mere cunning in his methods than do those
of the south. This is doubtless because of
is more varied training. for the southern
noonShiners are rule countrymen who
have been in that line of business perhaps
half their lives. On the other hand, the
average Illicit distiller at the north Is a
city bred man, belonging to the class whose
ways are shady generally, and with his
superior training and association is able
to Gevise some very shrewd ways of con-
cealirg his operations One of the devices,
which was very successful, too, was to
run TN Illicit alcohol still in connection
with a dairy.
The Brooklyn who invented this
plan had quite a successful experience. He
made his alcohol. put it into milk cans.
slipped the cans into his milk wagons with
those containing milk. and was thus able
to run them out ard furnish them to a
regular line of customers some time before
he discovered. Others operate in
Easements of buildings close down among
the wharves along the river. The incoming
vessels which bring sugar always have
more or less broken packages and leak
age which make 1t necessary to wash
out the accumulated Sweetness" and al
though it is usually filthy mess it fur
EfSheS mate rial for the Illicit stills.
They buy these washings for a trife, and
are also able to buy molasses for a very
low rate. The result is that their alcohol
costs them probably not more than is to
20 cents per gallon. KS the legitimate
manufacturers cannot make it for less than
20 cents, and then must add 81 10 per gal
Ion for the tax, the market price for tax
paid goods is about seven times what the
elicit distiller's product costs him. Hence
the fact that many people are now will
ing to take risks which they never before
took, and the increase in arrests and also
in the production of Illicit alcohol.
1t is probable that there are couple of
thousand Illicit stills running in this coun-
try today This estimate includes the sew
eral hundred small ores which are regis
tered to produce three or four gallons a
day, tax-paid, but really double or treble
that work. The seizures this year will
amount to nearly two thousand and 1t is
found that nearly every man who is ar
rested, or whose still is broken up, goes
back into the business as soon as possible
So the estimate of couple of thousand
is probably not an excessive one, and an
estimate of three four million gallons
Of untaXed spirits made in the year would
not fall outside the limits of the probabili-
ties,