The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-07-23
MOON;HINEERS
KEEP REVENUE OFFICERS ON THE
 JUMP.
Many Stills In Cities-CommissiOn Yerkes Talks About His Chief Tr0uble-Danger0us to
 Break Up.

WaSnlngton telegram to The Phlla- delphia Record says:
 The killing of three moonshiners and the wounding of three others in a fight between the Illicit distillers of whis- key and revenue officers in Buchanan County, Va, has aroused fresh interest in the subject of moonshining in gen. eral. According to John w.. Yerkes, Commissioner of Internal Revenue, the illicit distilling of spirits Is by no means confined to the wild mountain districts.
 ate sin the large cities of the country, where one would least expect to find them" Asked as to what remedy he proposed as the best means of stopping g the illicit trade, the Commissioner re- piled:
 There is just one way to wipe out moonshining. and that Is to take the tax of distilled spirits. It is the only way. So long as the Government inn poses a tax, there will be attempts to evade the tax. and in some degree these attempts will be successful"
 That the efforts of the revenue officers have reduced moonshining to a mini- mum there Is no doubt, and some of them are of the opinion that the time Is not far distant when the distillation of liquor contrary to law will be en- tire1y a thing of the past. But Com- missioner Yerkes does not delude him. self with the idea that moonshining can be totally prohibited.
 There is moonshining in every part of the country" said the Commissioner, despite the efforts of our men to stamp 1t out. have no doubt that illicit dis tilling Is being carried on at this very minute in New York. Philadelphia, Chi cigo and other cities. At frequent in- tervals our men uncover illicit stills in the large Northern and Eastern cities, while down in the noun tain districts of Georgia, Kentucky and other Southern States mountain dew Is distilled by the natives in defiance of the law. A good deal of moonshine whiskey used to be made In Pennsyl- vania. but illicit distilling has been about wiped out in that State.
 Stills Found i'm Queer Places.
 You would scarcely expect to find an illicit still in a beautiful residence up in Portland, Me, would you? Yet that Is just where our revenue agents un- covered one. Sometimes we get a clew from the most unexpected source. Some of our men, about two years ago. dis covered that considerable amount of rough sugar from Cuba was being brought in through the port of Boston.
 
 in the manufacture of rum, and we could not imagine to what other use it could be put. So our men ascertained where 1t was shipped from Boston, and learned the name of the man to whom 1t was consigned in Portland. They went up there, and found that he had bought a beautiful house in the out skirts of the city. and that the sugar was taken to this house The result
 hat hoy inf ha rla n1 found a still in operation.
 The revenue agents sometime ago came to the conclusion that Illicit whis- key was being made right in the heart of New York, but they could not To- cate the still. Finally. one of them mo- ticed a well-dressed young man, who made regular trips to a house. carrying a suitcase when he went in and bring ing 1t with him when he went away. Every day he called two or three times at this same house. and when the off, cers had made up their minds that his actions would bear investigation they arrested him.
 "The suitcase was found to contain two rectangular cans, each holding about two and half gallons of whis- key. These cans had screw tops, like maple syrup cans. and the young fellow by making two or three trips a day was
 
 of the still The officers destroyed the still and arrested the moonshiners
 "We have found number of in- stances where distillers, operating un- der Government licenses. have been cheating the Government by drawing on a part of the contents Of the still and thus avoiding the payment of the internal revenue tax on that much of their product In one case the distiller had a square iron box secreted in his cellar which was connected with the still by a pipe, and by merely turning a stopcock he could draw off a few gal Ions of liquor. The whole contrivance was so neatly arranged that 1t was only by accident that 1t was discov- cred. but when 1t was found the man was prosecuted and his still closed"
 The business of ferreting out and de- stroying illicit stills and of prosecuting moonshiners Is in the hands of the rev. enue agents. who are under the direc- tion of a chief agent located in Wash ington. Gen. F. D. Sewall is in charge of the division and he works under the instructions of Commissioner Yerkes For the purpose of this work the entire country is divided into sixteen districts. each in charge of a revenue agent Some of these agents have one or more making about thirty men engaged in the detection of illicit stills Congress each years appropriates s1O0.- 900. which Is known as the fraud fund" and is used for the payment of rewards. the employment of additional help and the prosecution of cases.
 Dangerous Business to Break Up.
 In 1904 there were 1.01S Illicit stills seized and 991 moonshiners arrested. During the preceding year 1900 stills were seized and 1898 arrests were made and from these figures, together with the fact that there has been a very material decrease in seizures and ar rests for several years past, 1t Is ar gued by the officials that moonshining is becoming a lost art. During the eI1ht vaars from ISe7 1362A stiilS wara