and paid to the same agent with the knowledge and consent of McDonald, the supervisor of internal revenue, and of Joyce, the revenue agent, for a false report as to the condition of the distilleries in this city. In 1874 $10,000 were raised and paid to Hogue, another revenue agent, for a like purpose. "In the spring of 1875 $10,000 were raised by the distillers and given to McDonald to be used as a corruption fund in Washington to stop threatened proceedings. But this was unavailing, and the apprehended seizures and arrests were made. In every instance knowledge of the visits of the government agents and detectives seems in some way to have been discovered by the conspirators in time to enable the distillers to straighten up' before the official visitation was made. There is every reason to believe, without going beyond the testimony in this case, that the conspiracy here was not an isolated one, but only a link in a chain of frauds of like character in many States, thus enabling the leading conspirators in different places to coöperate with each other in ways and means to avoid detection and escape punishment." THE MOONSHINERS. The moonshiners, like the poor, we have always with us. Their number does not diminish from year to year. The poor mountaineer is determined to distill the meagre surplus of his mountain farm, whether fruit or grain, into moonshine whiskey or fruit-brandy, and no efforts of the government seem to be sufficient to permanently deter him. The number of illicit stills seized during the fiscal year 1881 was 756, and during the fiscal year 1891 the number was 795. In 1893 the number was 806, and in 1894 the number had risen to 1,016. In analyzing the reports of 1893, we find all but ten of the 806 illicit stills seized in the United States were discovered in the Appalachian chain of mountains beginning in Pennsylvania and running through the Virginias, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, and Alabama. In thirteen years 14 officers have been killed and 21 wounded in struggles with the moonshiners. No record has been kept of the number of distillers and their friends killed and wounded, but the number of casualties among them is known to exceed the casualties among the officers. Where all the illicit stills come from, after so many are destroyed, is a question which puzzles the internal revenue office. Almost all the illicit stills are destroyed at the time of their seizure, and yet they are found set up again in the same localities year after year. The government is obliged, at considerable expense, to keep a force on foot from year to year, in the vain endeavor to suppress these mountain stills. If it were possible wholly to suppress them, it is not probable that there would be any appreciable increase of revenue resulting therefrom. The mountaineers would simply be without their whiskey. On the other hand, if they were left wholly unchecked, their production might easily reach such proportions as would seriously affect the revenue. CONSUMPTION OF DISTILLED SPIRITS. The proportion of distilled spirits which is used in the arts, in manufacturing perfumery, etc., and in the various tinctures and medicinal compounds, of which it forms so important a part, as compared with the quantity used as a beverage, has never been satisfactorily ascertained. It is conjectured that the amount now used in the arts, etc., is not more than one tenth of the whole production. It is certain that the proportion was much larger at the period when the tax was imposed in 1862. It is stated that at that time there was one distiller who produced nearly a million gallons of alcohol per annum to be used in the manufacture of burning fluid alone. It is a curious fact that in the fiscal year 1864 the tax was collected on 85,295,393 gallons (56,863,595 gallons at twenty cents, and 28,431,798 gallons at sixty cents, to which latter rate the tax was raised March 7, 1864), and this quantity was never afterwards equaled in any year until 1891, when the tax was collected on 88,473,437 gallons, a period of 27 years, during which time the country had doubled in population. The census of 1860 estimates the consumption of distilled spirits at 89,968,651 gallons for that year. This, of course, includes the quantities consumed in the arts, which must have been immensely greater then than now, and this estimate receives further confirmation from the quantity on which tax was collected in 1864. It is probable that the increase in the price of all commodities which was so noticeable in 1864, in consequence of the depreciation of the paper currency, operated so as to allow, up to that time, the continuance of many manufactures in which spirits formed an important part, which were afterwards perforce abandoned. The discovery during the war period of petroleum in great quantities, which furnished the cheapest illuminating material ever known ; and the increase of the tax on alcohol, rising finally to $2.00 a proof gallon, causing the abandonment of the important manufacture of camphene or burning fluid, are probably the greatest factors in accounting for this diminution in the consumption of alcohol. Of course the apparent reduction in consumption shown in the returns for the years from 1865 to 1868 was mostly fraudulent, as has heretofore been explained. The export of distilled spirits free of tax forms quite an item every year. For the year 1894 the quantity exported was 6,114,417 gallons. Of this total, a considerable quantity was rum sent to the coast of Africa to assist in civilizing the heathen; and a larger amount was Bourbon whiskey exported to Hamburg and Bremen for storage and reimportation, to avoid the payment of the tax at the end of the three years' bonded period. The extension of the payment of the tax for eight years from date of entry in bond by the act of August 28, 1894, will probably stop this class of exportations, for some years at least, as American whiskeys are not consumed in Europe in any appreciable quantity. Considerable alcohol also goes abroad to be used in the arts, and in fortifying wine, and as a basis for the manufacture of fine brandies, some of which no doubt returns to us in the form of Old Madeira, Port, and the finest French Cognac. ACTS IMPOSING TAX ON DISTILLED SPIRITS, AND RATES OF TAX. Spirits more than 10 per cent below proof distilled from foreign materials......... Spirits more than 10 per cent below proof distilled from Spirits under 5 per cent and not more than 10 per cent Spirits proof and not more than 5 per cent below distilled from domestic materials.... Spirits above proof not exceeding 20 per cent distilled from foreign materials. Spirits above proof not exceeding 20 per cent distilled Spirits above proof more than 40 per cent distilled from Spirits more than 10 per cent below proof distilled from foreign materials... Spirits more than 10 per cent below proof distilled from domestic materials.. Spirits under 5 per cent and not more than 10 per cent Spirits proof and not more than 5 per cent below distilled Spirits above proof not exceeding 20 per cent distilled from foreign materials. 250 66 .07 .11 66 .08 66 .12 66 .09 Spirits above proof not exceeding 20 per cent distilled from domestic materials .11 Spirits above proof more than 20 per cent and not exceed- Spirits above proof more than 40 per cent distilled from ACTS IMPOSING TAX ON DISTILLED SPIRITS, AND RATES OF TAX, continued. Spirits distilled from whatever materials. Spirits distilled from whatever materials, except grapes.. Spirits distilled from grapes Spirits distilled from apples or peaches. Spirits distilled from apples, grapes, or peaches Spirits distilled from whatever materials. *Repealed December 23, 1817. |