COSTLY RECIPE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22742, 30 November 1935, Page 20

COSTLY RECIPE

OLD MAN'S BRAINWAVE * BOOTLEGGING ” SECRET THREE MONTHS’ SENTENCE. Frederick young, “ master mind ” of Britain’s bootlegging business, tbe man who cost the Government hundreds of pounds in tracking down his clients, was sent to prison for three months at Liverpool recently. Yet in Manor Park, London, where he lived, he was known as harmless old Fred. For this bald-headed, 73-year-old pensioner would not hurt a fly. He was as deaf as a gatepost for one thing. He could neither read nor write. His friends would have laughed outright at the ridiculous suggestion that one day Fred would do something that would shake the whole Customs Department to its foundations. As Mrs Young, | Fred’s anxious wife, told an interviewer: “My husband hated to think that he was ‘ retired,’ that no one would employ him any more, and was constantly occupied with schemes for making money. All his life he had been connected with the spirit trade. His trouble was that he knew too much about making whisky and too little about the law. Why, he even advertised in the papers. The way he conducted his business shows that he thought there was no real harm in it.’’ But, according to a friend, old Fred waj not without a certain native guile. He knew it was illegal to make whisky, but thought the law could not touch him if he sold only his recipe. “And so,” explained the friend, “he started his correspondence course in bootlegging. He could neither read nor write, and how he managed to answer his letters it is hard to say.” LONG WAITING LIST. Fred’s attempt at earning a little money turned into a gold mine. He had hundreds of inquiries from all over the British Isles, and charged for his recipe a fee of 5s or 7s 6d. How did he get caught? Well, up his- newspaper one day, a Customs oflicer got the shock of his life when he read Fred’s advertisement:— “ Scotch whisky distiller gives particulars for producing pure spirit; genuine formula. —Hartley, Greenhill Grove, Manor Park.” Browning, the Customs officer, called at the address, asked for Hartley, and was admitted by old Fred. He said he could make Browning a still, the materials costing 375, his charge for making being 255. Following this interview five men of the Customs office were detailed to capture the “master mind.” And in the house the Customs men captured an immense amount of correspondence and a long waiting list. Old Fred held to his point of view when charged. He admitted quite frankly that he had supplied people with information as to how they could make_their own spirits. “I don’t consider that illegal," he added. “ I was only selling my brains.” Hundreds of pounds were spent by the Customs authorities in tracing stills as a result of Fred’s advertisement. The officers’ inquiries took them to places as far apart as Northern Ireland, the Shetlands and Orkneys, and indeed all over the country. But Fred’s wife still thinks it a-shame that he should be imprisoned. “After all,” she pointed out, “ my Fred is an old man of 73, who didn’t know what he was doing; so why should they send him to prison? I don’t even know where they have sent my poor husband. I hate to think he is pining his heart out somewhere. If I only knew the name of the prison I would write to him.”