TRICKS OF THE RUM-RUNNER

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 144, 21 June 1930, Page 20

TRICKS OF THE RUM-RUNNER

Daily conflict with Customs agents and Prohibition enforcement officers sharpens the wits of the rum-runner and develops each week new tricks and stratagems. Tho active force of men stationed in the Barge Office at South Perry is thus kept continually alert, says the "New York Times." Recently an intrepid member of the rum fleet ran' in a disguised cargo. A trim schooner from Halifax was towed in to the Bargo Office landing, and an hour later, a report went about that 5000 eases of liquor had been seized. It developed that the liquor was not in bottles at all, but was ingeniously packed in tins similar to containers in which olive oil and cooking oils are sold. .

The elenient of chance that the Customs lawa may be defeatod is present every time a cargo of any kind enters the port of New York. , When a shipment is received, each

case is found to have been marked with a serial number by the shipper abroad. A file clerk in the Custom House picks out a number or two. numbers out of the serial list. The package or packages corresponding are brought in a bonded truck from the,pier and examined.

One instance, several years ago, turned out to be an exception to the rule that a package selected at random represents its fellows. A shipment of ten large eases of pottery was cheeked on the pier in prescribed order. Out of tho ten numbers a Custom House employee selected one, and. the packing case thus singled out was brought to the Appraiser's Stores for inspection. It contained nothing but pottery.

Later, after the shipment was delivered, a chance raid on a warehouso disclosed the ten packing cases. All were opened, and nine contained a flno grade of champagne.