Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1903-01-16
MEMO WAR THEIR REFUGE.
The Navy a Good Hiding Place for
Fuqitives from Justice.


81 observe that the New York cops
corralled a blue jacket off the receiving
ship down at Norfolk on suspicion
that he was burglar the other day,
said ON old time man o wars 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 a pretty good
hiding out place. LII the old days, iii
fact, the United States navy Was about
the first shelter made for by fellows
who had done things to get the pollce
after them. They would ship and
make d biz of a cruise and stay Ill the
uniform until their bunch of shore
troubles had blown over or been for
gotten, and then, as like as not, they
would jump the service and go back
to theiE nefarieus way OF making q
livelihood. on the bench. w nile | was
jamming around the map on the old
frigates [ met up with lot of such
chaps.
zone of them was a cracker-Jack in
the coupterfelting@ line, and he had
slipped into the servlcs to dodge the
Secret Service men, who were after
him for manufacturing large number
of exceedingly choice cart wheel dol
lars. This fellow shipped as fireman.
After six months of firing-thls was
out on the Asiatic statIon-he began
to tire of the monotony of the separa-
tion from his scounterfeitlng profession.
and he began to do some counterfeit
ing right on board the Americanship
of war. He rugged himself up regu
lar plant down below, in one of the
unused bunkers. He had brought the
dies along with him when he 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 bis work.
Mot only that, but he passed the
stuff in quantities in foreign ports
He would go ashore with load OF the
phonies in the Chinese and Japanese
ports, and get the American silver
changed Into legitimate gold by the
discounting meney lenders, and it is
certain that he picked UP large
amount of coin in this way. He went
over the side of the ship in 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 moans.
They had ascertained that the 'Ameri
can 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 United States few years later.
for again embarking upon his profes
sion of man ufacturipg cart wheels,
and he was sent over the road for a
long term.
But one of the most ingenious
eusses in the shape of a fugitive that
[ ever was shipmate with, was chap
who had spent most of his life as
moonshiner in Kentucky, He had
been corralled by an-internal revenue
man, who was taking him to a Ken
lucky lock up, but the moonshiner
waited for the internal revenue sharp
to look the other way for an instant,
and then he grabbed the officers 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 hammock in the United States
navy. He shipped as a 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
llquor right on board the ship. He
fixed up a neat miniature still in an
obscure corner of one of the bunkers,
got the corn brought aboard by the
bum boat men in the different ports,
and did his moonshining in mighty
scientific manner. He didn t make
the whiskey for profit, bnt just because
be wanted to keep his hand in, sup
pose. He more than kept the officers
of the frigate. puzzled for over year.
"Tbe ship would be at sea for ten
days or two weeks, and yet a dozen Oh
so of the black gang would be found
drunk at all hours of the day and night
md unfit for duty. The skipper and
iths ths .6hrst Inf tried their best to find
lout wnere the booze wag coming from,
bat it was too deep for them. The
moonshiner himself never got orrey-
eyed, but just kept one of these mel
| low buns on all the time. and so he
was never snagged for being souzed 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 parapherna
liza was turned up, and the thing thai
had been such a profound mystery tG
the men of the afterdeck was explain
ed. Wv Washipgton Post.