The Saint Paul globe., 1902-11-15
NAVY A HIDING PLACE
FUGITIVEs FIND SAFE REFUGE
ON UNCLE SANS VESSELS
Incidents Illustrating the Ingenuity
of Counterfeiter and a Kentucky
Moonshner Who Made Bogus Coins
and Distilled Whisky on Board
Ship.

SHips
WASHINGTON, D. c.. Nov. 14.-"I
notice that the New York cops arrest
ed blue jacket off the receiving ship
is a burglar the other day." said an
old time man-o'-war's man, who is
now on the messenger staff of the
navy department.
They must have been pretty astute
fly cops to have traced the man to
the receiving ship, for the American
navy is pretty good hiding-out
place. In the old days, in fact, the
United States navy was about the
hrst shelter made for by fellows who
had done things to get the police
after them. They would ship and
make a bit of a cruise and STAY in
the uniform until their bunch of store
trouble had blown over or been for
gotten, and then, as like as not, they
would jump the service and go back
to their nefarious way of making a
livelihood on the beach. When I was
Jamming around the map on the old
frigates I met up with a lot of such
chaps.
"One of them was a cracker lack
in the counterfeiting line, and he had
slipped into the service to dodge the
the secret service men, who We're af-
ter him for manufacturing a large
number of exceedingly choice and
nifty cart-wheel dollars. This fellow
shipped as a fireman. After six
months of firing-this was on
the Asiatic station-he began to tire
of the monotony of the separation
from his counterfeiting profession and
he began to do counterfeiting right
on board the American ship of war
He rigged himself up regular plant
down below in one Of the unused
bunkers. He had brought the dies
along with him when he had boarded
the ship, and he spent all of his time
turning out phony dimes and quarters
and halves, down in the den which he
had rigged UP for his work.
Not only that, but he passed the
stuff in quantities in the foreign
ports. He would go ashore with a
load of the phonies in the Chinese
and japanese ports and get the
American silver changed into legit-
innate gold by the discounting money
lenders, and 1t is certain that he pick
ed up large amount of coin in this
way. He went over the side of the ship
at Hongkong and forgot to come back
one day, and it wasn't long after that
before his counterfeiting apparatus was
dug up.
'Then the money changers began to
come aboard the ship with their means.
They had -aScertained the American
silver was bogus, and they all wanted
the paymaSter to make good to them.
He was in shape to laugh at them, of
course, and he did. The blue jacket
counterfeiter was snagged in the Unit
ed States a few years later for again
embarking upon his profession of man
ufacturing cart-wheels, and he was
sent over the road for a long term.
But one of the most ingenious cuSs-
eS in the shape of a fugitive that / was
ever shipmates with, was a chap who
had spent most of his life as moon
sinner in Kentucky. He had been cor
rallied by an internal revenue man, who
was taking him to a Kentucky lookup,
but the moonshiner waited for the in
ternal revenue sharp to look the other
way for an instant, and then he grab
bed the officials gun and plugged him
up a lot 1t was a case of run for it for
him then, sure enough, and when he
had time to take a long breath he
found himself curled up in a hammock
in the United States navy. He shipped
as coal HEAVIER, and he made a pretty
good one.
'His ingenuity consisted in the fact
that he used to manufacture mighty
effective and get there brand of corn
liquor right on board ship. He fixed
UP a neat miniature still in an obscure
corner of the bunkers, got the corn
brought aboard by the bumboat men
in the different ports, and did his
moonshining in mighty scientific
manner. He didn't make the whis-
ky for profit, but just because he
wanted to keep his hand in, suppose.
He more than kept the officers of the
old frigate puzzled for over year.
'"The ship would be at sea for ten days
or two weeks, and yet a dozen or SO
of the black gang would be found
siff1icated at all hours of the day and
night, and unfit for duty. The skipper
and the first luff' tried their best to
find out where the booze was coming
from, but it was too deep for them.
The moonshiner himself never got or
ry-eyed, but just kept one O. these
mellow buns on all the time, and so he
was never snagged for being soused
on duty. He decided to stay on the
beach one day when all hands went
ashore for liberty at Pensacola, and in
the course of time his little copper
coils and other vodka making para
phernalia was turned up, and the thing
which had been such profound mys-
terry to the men of the after-deck was
explained"