The Winchester news. [volume] (Winchester, Ky.) 1908-19??, 1909-01-28
For Shortage in Net
Weight Of Tobacco.
Recently Sold to Indepen-
dent Manufacturers.
Revenue Agents Here and OthGrstU
Follow Many HugshGad Found
Short Of Amount Purchased

The above startling headlines APP
pear in the Cincinnati Enquirer to-
day: The Enquirer says:
Sensational revelations in the af-
fairs of the Burley Tobacco Society
or tobacco planters combine were
disclosed yesterday after investiga-
tons by Government officials which
have been going on in this city for the
last few days.
The officials referred to are Major
Hancock and Mr.. Goebel, of Wash
ington, d. c., special agents of the
Commissioner of Internal Revenue,
and, so far as their Investigations
have gone. extensive errors, bearing
every evidence of fraud in the mat
ter of net weights of hogsheads of to-
baccO sold by the Burley Society or
its agents to independent manufac-
turers, have been revealed.
The matter of the shortages in
weights and the astounding revela-
tions of the Government officials was
the sole topic of conversation in loo
al tobacco circles yesterday, and the,
prediction was freely made that the
Revenue Department at Washington
Will send on additional officials in the
next 4S hours, and these will place
every Burley Society warehouse or
storage barn in the entire hurley dis
trict under lock and seal until a com
plete and sweeping investiga ton is
made.
The grievance of the independent
manufacturers, however, and the one
which has brought the present SEN
sationa1 investigation of the Govern
ment is over the matter Of "tares,"
or the correct weight of the hogs
heads in which their purchases were
packed. At very few points where
the Burley Society pooled tobaccos
were held, and are still held in stor-
age awaiting deliveries, has the So
ciety been equipped with the neces-
sary apparatus and fixtures for
sampling, grading or weighing, and
some extensive borrowing of such
apparatus was tried here and at
Louisville by the Burley people dur
ing the tobacco war. but with very
little success, as none of the ware
houses in either city had any of the
apparatus to spare.
The most charitable construc ton
that can be placed on the Burley So
ciety's weighing and samping, ID
examples of which from Franklin,
WOodford and Harrison counties,
Kentucky, are given below, is that
instead of following the usual custom
of the trade. in securing "actuaP
gross tare and net weights the Bur-
ley Society people took the gross
weight, only knocked out one or two
slaves of the hogshead to get the
sample instead of extracting it from
three different sections of the pack
age, as required under sections of the
package, as required under the in
spection rules of the trade, replaced
the slaves, and then made guess at
the "tare" with very liberal and
generous allowance for error in their
own behalf.
Actual tares of tobacco hOgsheads
vary from about 40 to 200 pounds,
this variation being due to the fact
that some of the hogsheads are made
of poplar and others of oak or other
hard woods.
Recently a very prominent local
iand Independent manufacturer got
wise to the fact there was serious
discrepancies in the Burley Society's
and his own net weights of his por
ton of the tobacco sold by the Bur-
ley Society to the Independents. The
firm took 13 hogsheads of its pur
chase out of the B. & o. storage
warehouse, in this city, and in the
presence of disinterested witnesses,
ldone little weighing of its own in