THE ART OF BOOTLEGGING.

Otago Witness, Issue 3444, 16 March 1920, Page 59

THE ART OF BOOTLEGGING.

The' amazing story of the deaths of people in America from drinking wood spirit draws attention to the art of smuggling strong drink which obtains across the Atlantic under the name • of "bootlegging." There are two explanations of the origin of the word. According, to the one the first men engaged in the traffic carried the whisky bottles hidden in the high legs of their leather boots; the other has it that a man with a wooden leg concealed the liquor in it. Now that the entire United States has gone dry bootlegging has revived. Ten thousand illicit dealers and as many makers is at best a very moderate estimate of the people engaged in this trade. The columns of the daily papers, from California to Manitoba, contain almost daily reports of arrests being made not only of bootleggers, but of distillers. Before the railroad which tapped the Peace River country was completed in 1913 the liquor had to be smuggled in on sleighs and waggons, and in some places, where passable roads existed, automobiles were used. About the most ingenious trick of the early bootleggers was to pack bottles of whisky in the centre of bales of bay. For a long time the mounted police were puzzled by this scheme. Then the" came to notice that simultaneously with the arrival in each settlement of a load of baled hay drunkenness increased. So the

device -was discovered. One of the most famous bootleggers struck upon a ' newscheme. As he drove into one of the settlement- towns he carried as 'passengers in his waggon two Sisters of Mercy in full religious garb. Naturally, the police paid no attention to these women nor their baggage. A few days later, the smuggler crossed the line into the prohibited territory at- another point and entered another little new settlement. Again, oddly enough, he had as passengers the two Sisters of Mercy in full religious garb. This went on for some weeks, till the police came to notice that following the arrival of the sisters in a settlement drunkenness increased. The sisters on their next trip were subjected to questions, and their trunks examined. Each trunk was full of whisky. The women were not Sisters of Mercy at all. i Liquor was smuggled in as coal, oil, and almost every other imaginable commodity. When the railroad was completed beyond latitude 53 into the northiand, freight cars, marked "dynamite," were shipped into the north. ' They really contained cases of whisky. Whisky was also shipped in under piles of coal. Perhaps the cleverest ruse was Backing the whisky inside the bodies of dead hoes-xirepared for market. With the entire country dry, however, the game is becoming more difficult every day.