The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-03-18
EvADING PROHIBITION LAWS
Clever Schemes of Joint Keepers of Kansas to
 Supply the Thirsty

the prohibitOry law were smarter than
 he was and it has been a survival of
 the fittest. so that the joint-keeper
 who practices deceit today must reach
 almost the limit of human ingenuity.
 And fearful and wonderful are some of the schemes invoked to evade the 1 laws.
 i John Dawson, attorney general of Kansas, is the chief law-enforcing of l ficer. He has to keep tab on the law enforcement work in 105 counties, and | it keeps him and dn assistant pretty busy doing it. The other day Daw- 1 son was checking over his joint cases | of the last year to see what dispOsi- tion had been made of those finally tried in the courts and what steps l should be taken to get the other cases ready for trial. In this list there were TOO liquor cases out of 1000 cases
 handled by the attorney general dur | ing the last year. Most of the boot 1 logging and joint cases were ordinary affair. but a considerable number dis 1 closed marked cleverness on the part i of the bootlegger in his efforts to out wit the officers. Here are some of the smart tricks turned by jointi-ts and bootleggers in Kansas in the last year 1 to evade the prOhibitOry law, as shown | by official records.
 At Hutchinson police officers looked l into an ostensible X-Ray machine and | whiskey in bottles
 At Wichita a jointist had special suit Of clothes made with sixty pock- cts, each pocket holding a half pint of whiskey. He was walking dram shop. When loaded he appeared like very large man. When he had sold out he was a small man and his. cloth ing hung in wrinkles. A policeman saw him drinking and held him up for investigation.
 At Elgin a jointist kept 'shop tea'', a two per cent. alcohol drink, and real beer. When arrested and his liquor confiscated he had real beer in the was surrounded by the counterfeit. The chemist examined only the bot ties filled with counterfeit and the jointist went free and told the officers about it after being acquitted.
 At Wichita jointist was arrested bottles of the beer and twenty of the tea, a temperance drink. He offered the policeman a drink and they drank up the four bottles of real beer and the jointist was acquitted because no evidence of sales of beer was ob- tained.
 At. Wichita a bootlegger had sixteen regular customers and a dog. It was only little curly-haired spaniel, but the bootlegger took him to all his GUS toners one day. The next day the dog started out with a bottle of whis- key in his mouth. He visited each customer Those who desired took a next Each week the bootlegger col lected from each customer.
 In Topeka negro extended water pipe into the attic of his house and connected it with keg of beer, and was in business five months before %I.1 fiy,1 hnr to sold the beer.
 In lola a man peddled toothwash on the streets The wash was cheap whiskey of pink color.
 A chap put an advertisement in paper at Atchison of an auction sale of suit cases and traveling bags: Each bag contained from pint to four quarts of whiskey and sold rap idly.
 A man worked in Topeka, Kansas City, Kan., Atchison, Wichita and Fit. Scott during the fall and hasn't been caught yet. He would walk up to a man on the street and offer to get him a pint of first class liquor at $2 pint. He had a large package un- der his arm, and if the citizen want ed the liquor the package was left with the purchaser while the boot legger went around the corner to get the Mauo- He never came back, and
  the citizen would decide that he had been "stung' for s2. Then he would examine the package and find there the pint of whiskey he had purchas- ed
 Tn the days when law enforcement was lax in Kansas some of the schemes to evade the law were bold CT.
 Chief among these was the drugless drug store, which f1ourished before the days of an awakened official con- science. There were many of these pearance they were drug stores-the windows were filled with drug adver- tisements and the shelves carried the same rows of bottles found in other drug stores. Usually the bottles were dummies filled with slak or flour, or colored water. Behind it all, usually separated by partition, was fully equipped bar. Ordinarily it was i'm possible to purchase a drug of such common use as quin1ne in one of these unterfeit pharmacies.
 For long time a joint keeper in Leavenworth puzzled the officers Many raids which were made failed to disclose the source of the supply, Finally when one of the raids was made the attention of the officers was attracted to a safe. The suspect was asked to open. He refused. The safe was blown and found to contain a stock of liquors.
 On one occasion, when Leavenworth was extremely "dry'', and the law en- forcement officers were making it par ticularly warm for the joint keepers, a pontoon bridge was constructed across the Missouri river to the town of Srtillings, Mo-, and nearly score of saloons were established. But this makeshift was short lived. Law en- forcement grew lax again in Leaven- worth and, besides, a pontoon bridge s not a satisfactory means of transit for unsteady feet.
 Probably the most famous scheme
 enable the thirsty to get liquor in Kansas was the M. B. This was
 ecret order, the Order of the Mystic Brotherhood. Every member was sworn to absolute secrecy, the same IS in the fraternal orders. One man n each town was the steward d he
 ought the liquor and furnished it to he members as they desired. The 7rder f1ourished for ten Or fifteen to check it, and then it took five years of hard court work to drive the 0r6er o,t of Kansas. There was an o. M. B. lodge in practically every Karsas town.
 The "blind tiger'' appeared in vari- ous forms in the State. It was al ways intended that no one should know who dispensed the liquor. If one knew where the tiger was running he would go up to it, lift a trap door in the wall and place a quarter or whatever the customary price in the town for beer or whiSkey whichever