The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1900-04-25

Tennessee, North Carolina and other
portions of the South said an old
revenue officer the other day. "Thc
average person would probably be sur
priscd to learn that the people who
give the government the most anxiety
in cvading the tax on whiskcy are not
the picturesque mountainccrs Of the
Southern States, but apparently we'll
to-do citizens of New York, Jersey
City, Philadelphia and Chicago. 1t
takes more men to watch these metro
politan moonshiners than are detailed
in half the rest Of the country, and
venture to say that more corn juice
escapes paying it's quota into the
Treasury Of Uncle Sam in New York
alone than in the States Of North and
South Carolina and Georgia put to-
gether.
"Thcre is nothing romantic about
your city distiller. Yon could tgct
up material for magazine story about
him, to say nothing of making him
the hero of novel He does not
have the forests and caves in which to
hide his calling. Moreover, he sell
dom fights when the officers Of the law
interfere with his occupation. Just
now can recall but one raid which
resulted in any one getting hurt.
Your noun ntainccr looks on the rcvc-
nue. officer as his natural enemy, and
considers the breaking up of wildcat
distilling as an interference with his
vested rights. His New York com
peer takes the matter more scnsibly.
lie knows that he is violating the law,
and when he is caught, he merely fig
urcs that he is out Of luck, and
that he might as we'll pay the penalty
without adding any moro often
ses to the charges already against him.
LOCATED IN SALOONS.
''The most frequent location of an
illicit still in the city is in or near a
saloon. The distiller thus has a mar
ket for his stuff, and he can carry on
the business with less chance of dis
covery. The odor of old beer kegs
and the other refuse which assail the
nostrils is liable to throw an officer off
the scent Of tho steaming sour mash.
Many of these stills have capacity of
from thirty to forty gallons day.
When you figure that tax Of $l.2O
per gallon is thus eluded, you can
see whether or not the occupation is
profitable.
"The moonshiners of the South
show no more ingenuity in hiding
stills than those OF New York. re-
member one still which bothered the
boys sor years. Thoy had spotted the
locality, bu. could not Gz the place
exactly. There was saloon, which
was doing fourishing business, and
to our certain knowledge they had not
bought barrel Of liquor in years.
When they caught onto the fact that
we were watching them, the rroprie-
tors made bluff at laying in stock.
We had searched the place time and
time again, but all to no purpose. FL
'nally, we got one Of our men put in
there as 2 helper in serving the free
iu6ches, for which the place was fa-
nous. He stayed there for three
months without getting on to q thing
that would help ua cat, end il ws
were not so cock sure that we were
right, we would have given up in dis
gust.
At last our man gave us the tip that
we had landed, and we swooped down
on the saloon. We put the proprie-
tors under arrest and went down into
the cellar, where we found trap.door
that was hidden with the most won
defeul cunning. This opened into an |
underground passage, which led for a |
hundred feet or more until we got di-
rectly beneath Jewish synagogue.
Here we found barrel upon barrel OF
tine whiskey that had been stored
there for years. There was also COM
plete distilling apparatus, although
none of the things had been used for
SOME time.
IMAM OFFICE BUILDING.
"Another still that gave us good
deal Of trouble was located in one Of
the. biggest Office buildings in New
York, down in the basement. The
janitor was an old distiller, and he
had gathered some Of his friends to
carry on the craft. doubt whether
we would ever have caught these peo-
pie II the snap mad not been given
away by one Of the partners, who was
dissatisfied with division of the