, 1909-05-19

ciou sent on agent named Parr to he docks
plrI suddenly entered one OF the weigh.
houses Willie a loai Was being weighed and.
having stopped the two previous loals. dc.
manded that all three should he Ie-weighed.
The result was thut tue laQl which he had
seen weighed gave the same, but the two
procedin, that one h a n reased IN weight ~
fourteen pounds and eighteen pouuj5 re-
spectively.
"While this little scene in the drama was
being acted says the O,tlook "Parr no.
ticed that the Company checker in the far
corner was croucLed over his counter in u
curious fNshioA with his left arm thrust
down into the corner under the shelf, and
that he kept changing colour.
~'Stepping toward HIM, Parr asked What
IRE you monkey d~oodling with Town there p
'Nulhin', said Kchoe, the Company checker.
''Parr ordered him to get up, sat down
himself, and, running his hand Town the
post, discovered he spring with its curlel
handle, wound with string as if to protect
the hugcrs Of any one handling it, lie did
not take the spring ont Of the hole, but ask
ed the checker what he knew about il. That
individual protested the most complete L.
uorauce Of it's existence, purpose, use, oligjn,
or history. And, what is perhaps q littls
remarkable, he showed no curiosity about it,
ana even declined to look at the spsng or
the hole whore it had been found
After the above, the reader scarcely needs
to be told TINT no other SPRING. were found;
but whlo it is oasy for 2 man to carry WAY
a small spring in his pocket, it - not
possible, except ia quito another sense, -
carry away q hole il hIs pocket, 50 the tell
tale holes remained, seventeen Of them,
hence it is'%Tle case Of the seventeen holes"
w IS fn,. .,T1 b,l,, -y-o, 49,, ..
interesting. They all gave plain eyldeuca,
by their enlargement, especially on the inner
side Of the post,of their beng frequently used,
uudit wa, uoteN orthy that at such 81 thesey-
euteeu weighing machines rs were IN moss
frequent use the enlargement was groateit It.
III several the enlargement had evidently
been SO mucb us to hinder the effective
action Of the spring, and in these cases, tLe
defect hud been romedied IN various
ways. ii one by filling in with putty, ID
another, with tek5 driven in on the upper
edge. in q third with a silver of wood gluod
in to make the hole smaller. In the most
striking of the eases the wood round the
hole 1ad been eat out and u fresh piece with
a new and smaller hole hud been counter
sunk into the post" 1t WAS not only the
seventeen holes, however, that made
the case cloar. the IRON lever whore the spring
resi- GQ LltC DCGu WOlu SuID'Lu Ny INC AIlCUiO4
of the spring and in one curious case the lever
in question Lud been flied Mt that point "pre-
sumably to give an acc rate resting place
for the spring"
When the frauds we're discovered the cargo
of q vessel named tho Strathyre was being
unloaded. Before the discovery, the loads
brought on to the scales had weighed some
thing W2dsr a thousand pounds each, but then
they Immediately rose and ranged botween
1890 and 1860, as shown III diagram form ID
the Outlook'5 article.
But how about the sellers Of the sugar,
were they cheated too, as well Us the Gov
erumeut ? No, they were not, and it was
this fact that enabled the Government to get
hold of the figures on which they were able
to c,aim, in the test case brought for trial, q
definite sum, namely 1884, 600. which was
awarded by the jury and palt by the com
pauy, and finally enabled the Government TO
get more than a million dollars returned
from the large amount which had been pill
fered from the public.
The difference between the revenue weight
and sellers weight was first got at III
certain cases by consulting the sellers, but
later was shown up by the Company's own
records. 1t appears that in those cargoes