The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-04-26
COUNTERFEIT STAMPS SEIZED.
10000 OF JACOBS a co.'s CIGARS
CAPTURED BY OFFICERS.

Deputy Collector of Internal HeVe-
nue. BnSch Made the Haul-The CT
CARS Were Found in the Ware
rooms of savannah Dealers and
10000 COnfiseated Outright-l3o'-
600 Others Are Being Held for Fur
sher Examination Counterfeit
Stamps Can Scarcely Be Told From
the Genuine-AH of the Cigars
Hearing the Mark of Jacobs Fac
sa=v VIII he Seized and COnfis-
Gated.
During the last two or three days Dep
uty Inspector of Internal Revenue Theo.
Basch has seized $1,000 cigars manufac-
tured by w. NJ. Jacobs & Co. Of Factory
No. 3.7A. Ninth district of Pennsylvania,
and bearing the counterfeit stamps that in
genious and acute individual has been US
ing in his business.
Besides the cigars that have been
seized, 10000 others have been held
back for future Investigation and will
not be allowed to be sold unit! 1t mas
been definitely determined that they do
not emanate from the guilty factory or
bear the counterfeit stamps.
The cigars have been taken from the
warerooms of various prominent whole
sale grocery and tobacco houses in the
city, none of whom. of course. are sus-
pected os any intentional wrong-doing, but
all of whom nave bought the cigars in
good faith and have been themselves the
req
son the revenue authorities hold back
their names from the public and refuse
to give out other information than the
bare fact that the cigars have been confis-
Gated and are now In the possession of
the government inspectors.
The dealers are thought to be
entirely without fault in the mat
ter, and there is no disposition
on the part of the revenue officers to in
voIve them IN further trouble than they
have already been put in. through their
dealings with the energetic and pushing,
though somewhat INSCRIPTIONS, factory
that entered into competition. on large
scale. with the government bureau of en-
craving and printing
1t is said that the secret service detec-
tives who raided the Jacobs establishment
at Lancaster found two plates that had
been worn out from use. 1t is estimated
that the average life OF a Plate Is between
100000 and 100000 impressions, So that the
two WORKOUT plates would indicate that
the government had been defrauded out
of at least sl50,000, the price of a stamp
to cover the manufacture and sale of fifty
cigars being IS cents. This estimate does
not cover the fraudulent gains from the
use of plates that were sim making i'm
pressions at the time of the seizure or
those chat had been entirely discarded.
The number of cigars that were seized
In Savannah is but an indication of the
extent 20 which the business had been car
rled, as throughout the country the seiz-
ures have Appropriated relatively as large
amounts The cigars manufactured by the
factory were of the cheaper grades and
were distributed in almost unlimited pro-
fusion all over the Southern and West
ern states. The revenue officers have
been capturing them everywhere, and they
continue 10 turn up, almost without sensi-
bic diminution. with each succeeding day.
An examination of the counterfeit
stamps reveals to the unframed eye moth
ing at all suspicious and it is not possible
for one not thoroughly acquainted with
the work of detecting the difference be-
tween the false and the real 10 distinguish
the one from the other. 1t is said that
there is a slight defect In the figure de-
noting the denomination of the stamps,
but this is so extremely slight and trivial
that II requires a microscope with a we'll
trained eye behind it, to detect IT, The bur
den of proving that the stamps are coun-
terfeit is not cast upon the revenue off,
GERS as they have been directed TO seize
OIL OF the cigars that bear the brand of
Factory No. S.Tll. This renders the work
extremely simple and not at all difficult.