The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1916-05-18
TIGERS IN GEORGIA.
Farm Wagons With False Bottoms
Club Counters With Big Tops.

Club Counters With Big Tops.
Atlanta, May 4.-Activities of Of
ficers to rigidly enforce Georgia's
prohibition law that went into effect
May l have disclosed some unique
methods of blind tigers" to evade
the law. An inconspicuous farm wa
gon, driven on the streets of Atlanta,
was equipped with false bottom
filed with pint bottles of liquor, a
counter in social club has false
top full Of bottles, and by following
series of trap doors discovered un-
der house in the outskirts of the
city officers found large quantity of
liquor stored in a cave that had once
been used for illicit distilling. The
"blockaders' had used the chimney
of the house to carry off the smoke.
Getting rid of the smoke is one Of
the blockaders' most perplexing
problemE
A general raid at 7:30 o'clock in
the morning at Savannah participant
ed in practically by every member OF
the police force resulted in confsca-
ton of so much liquor that nearly
every dray in the city was employed
to haul it to the police station. More
than 100 arrests were made. No
private homes, where a family might
have provided against the anti-ship-
ping feature by laying in a little
more than the prescribed two quarts
of liquor, gallon of wine or forty
eight pints OF beer, were entered.
Atlanta officials have stated that they
would investigate homes where it
was believed more than the law al
lows is stored, but no such action has
been taken. The fact that large
quantities of intoxicants were ship
ped into the State just prior to May
has been established beyond doubt.
It has been admitted by officials
that in at least three important cities
of the State and in some communi-
ties not so thickly populated, the for
mer prohibition law was not rigidly
enforced. That the law allowed the
sale of beer but not liquor.
Reports from every section of the
State, however, show that the new
law is being lived up to with the ex-
eeption OF the comparatively few
"blind TIGERS Persons for and
against prohibition point to the spec
tacular and far-reaching Savannah
raid as evidence of this.
Liquor confscated in the irsc rnir-
teen days of May has run into the
tens of thousands of gallons: The
sheriff of Coffee county seized por-
ton of two carloads in the possession
of the Ocila, Pine Bloom and Valdos-
ia railroad, and out of that act has
grown the first case attacking the
law. The railroad was transporting
the liquor during the latter part OF
April and had it on a side track at
Ocila May /. After part of the liquog
| was seized Federal Judge Emery
Speer granted a temporary injunc-
tion restraining the officers from TAX
ing the remainder. Men guarding
the cars were shot at the fir st night
after the Injunction was issued. A
| few Intellectual shots were fired. No
one was hurt.
Another case in which interpreta-
ton of the law is involved is in the
Atlanta courts. A railroad refused
to deliver to a soft drink manufac-
turing company two barrels of pure
alcohol, which is used in dissolving
certain ingredients which go into the
| beverage. The company is suing in
the Fulton county superior court for
possession of the alcohol, delivery OF
which the railroad claims, would be
in violation of the prohibition law.
Fines for violation of the law already
have amounted to more than $4,000
in the local police court
Orders to destroy liquor was car
ried to the limit by an Atlanta po-
liceman Friday. A negro dropped
quart bottle of whiskey at the most
prominent corner in the city. The
officer lighted the puddle that the
spilled beverage made and burned it.
In his report to headquarters he said
two hundred persons were attracted
to the scene.
DiSaStrOuS Fire at Whifmire.