Bay Rum Has Them Barking Like Dogs

1920

Many Weird Ways to Evade Liquor Law Reported

Embalming Fluid and Rain Water Are Sold for Whisky at Immense Profit

Clamping of the prohibitive lid on the saloons and purveyors in various brands of intoxicating liquors has brought forth some strange and amusing schemes — amusing to all but the victims — by which professional and amateur "con" men have been enabled to bamboozle hundreds Of easy marks into purchasing even dirty rainwater at six or more dollars a quart. For instance. three clever "slickers" are under arrest in Chicago for selling John Lamorec two barrels of rainwater for $1,500. He was a victim of the ingenious "funnel game" which relies for its success on the fact that what comes out of the bung may not be a true sample of the entire contents.

Buffalo, N. Y., reports that three women and two men are in a hospital there, the result of a murderous swindle. A bootlegger sold them embalming fluid for whisky. It was diluted with vanilla extract. One of the women was unconscious for thirty-six hours and is in a serious condition.

Made Them Bark Like Dogs

Adam Rufnagle and George Crowley, two Cincinnati pals, couldn't get anything else, so they drank bay rum; they made such a row in their room that the police were called in. They were found crawling about the floor and barking like dogs.

Theft of nine barrels of sacramental wine was reported to the New York police by a wholesale liquor dealer. The theft was accomplished, he said, by siphoning the wine from his basement to an adjoining cellar by means of a seventy-five-foot pipe. The owner had a special permit from the Government to keep the wine in bond to be sold for religious purposes only.

Recently there has been a rush in Army stores in Baltimore for vanilla and lemon extracts, fair sized bottles being sold for 15 cents. Investigation turned attention to the extracts and the sale has been stopped.

"Deadly Bomb" Contains Booze

What was declared to be a "deadly bomb," brought to Los Angeles by a special agent of the Tucson division of the Southern Pacific, who suspected an attempt to wreck the Golden State Limited as he picked up the thing near Yuma, when pierced by a bullet fired at a safe distance gave forth the aroma of whisky, thus exposing the wiles of Arizona bootleggers.

Nathan Barrow of Uniontown, Pa., was charged by Harry Green with the theft of five hams. Barrow declared had been listening to a phonograph playing "I've Got the Alcoholic Blues" and, being in sympathy with the song, he fell. Asked to sing it, Barrow did, and the jury freed him.

Cured by Horse Liniment

Wesley Duke of Watertown, N. Y., found a chest of medicines left in his uncle's barn by a traveling veterinary, and, discovering that one of the larger bottles was suggestive of an alcohol [*bottle, drank the] contents. The stuff was a patented horse liniment, and Wesley was barely snatched from death's door. "It, was an awful nightmare," he says, describing his sensations when delirious, during which he imagined he was a two-minute trotter pitted against a fast thorobred runner.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1900, p. 2.

*Note: That in brackets is missing in the original article and is suggested by the context.