Connecticut western news., 1922-09-14
FAMOUS TURTLE FOUND
 TO BE A BOOTLEGGER
(Continued from page D /

The wonderful vitality of the turtle was attested further by Professor 1 Stone, who stated that on one occa sion in his own experience, when a turtle was being prepared for soup, | the heart was given to a cat, which rlayed with it for five hours, at the erd of which period it was still beat irg strong and steadily.
 "The water bottle bore evidence, in moisture and odor, of having re- gently contained liquor; cork which fitted the aperture exactly. was faund in the woodchuck hole, and the ground there was moist and gave forth pungent odor of hootch. The obvious explanation was that the turtle was engaged in bootlegging, and a torn fragment of gummed paper adhering to the edge of his shell indicated that when he took his -unlucky tumble he was on his way from some point on Mount Everett in Berkshire county, to the Methodist camp meeting ground at Pine Grove, between Canaan and Falls Village, where a number of Winsted and Bridgeport people are domiciled for the summer.
 It has been recalled by several persons that at various times thin columns of smoke have been seen rising from high points on the almost inaccessible eastern side of Mount Everett, several hundred acres of whose rocky and wooded slope is owned by Walter Prichard Eaton, the well-known author, dramatic critic and lecturer, who has a magnificent residence at the foot. However, mo- body had even dreamed of issociat- ing those thin columns of smoke with any suggestion of moonshinery. Charles M. Stotz, a Pittsburgh architect, who had been spending few days at Twin Doors, and who has given much thought and study to the Sherlock Holmes theory of deduction, elimination, etc, has ad- vanced the explanation that the habits of this centenarian turtle, in wandering from the region of it's habitat-the neighborhood of the Pine Grove Camp Meeting ground and returning to it at intervals, had been observed by some of the more sophisticated summer residents, from either Winsted or Bridgeport, who had taken notice of these thin smoke columns on Mount Everett, and by fiendishly ingenious conspiracy with somebody on the mountain they had established bootleg expense delivery system that was immune from even the suspicion of the most alert and vigilant revenue officers who infest those parts. The modus operapdi consisted in transforming the inno- cent old peripatetic turtle into com mon carrier by the process des- cribed; presumably transporting him by automobile to the foot of the mountain, at a point agreed upon, where he would be properly filled by the moonshiners, with couple of quarts of hootch, and turned loose to make his way, by his unerring "hon- ing" instinct, back to his home quar- ters near the sacred precincts of the camp meeting ground. No federal agent would of course see anything suspicious in a turtle "traveling light" under the back seat of an auto mobile; and surely no sleuth would think of searching a turtle travelling on foot.
 "One interesting sequel is, that since the disclosure turtle-hunting has become an industry with certain parties in the camp ground territory, and the competition has become so lively that the genus Caledonia is in danger of extermination in that sec ton. To prevent such a calamity it is said a number of nature lovers, of whom J. Henry Roraback is one, are preparing bill to be introduced in the next legislature to protect turtles at all seasons and providing for a heavy fine, with imprisonment, for every violation"