“RUM KING’S” ROMANCE

Hokitika Guardian, 17 January 1925, Page 4

“RUM KING’S” ROMANCE

MARRIES ENGLISH. GIRL. A REMARKABLE STORY. SAX KEAXOISCO, December 0. Australians and Now Zealanders are probably already aware of the strange rum-running ease at San Francisco, where a prominent Vancouver lawyer, while acting for a captain and crew of a Vancouver ruinrunning vessel was ruthlessly arrested at 2 o’clock in the morning at. his fashionable hotel in San Francisco, "and where the same attorney "jumped'’ his bail and returned to Rritish Columbia breathing vengeance on the Volstead oflieials of San Francisco (says the Auckland “Star’s” correspondent).

In connection with this orgy of Pacific Joa-L smuggling is a weird story which has just been unfolded at Seattle. It is a story in which the romance was a heroine, woven around ihe greatest rum-smuggling Voiispiracy yet uncovered on the western ocean, notorious lor a gigantic traffic in illicit liquor, brought to America’s shores to meet the insistent demands of a thirsty Yankee public determined to indulge in something stronger than water at Yuletide. ENIGMATIC GIRL. The heroine of this smuggling romance is a pretty and accomplished .yuiing English girl. until recently Aliss Elsie Caroline Pirn-lie. and now Mis Roy Olmstcad. wife of the “King of Rum Smugglers” ol the Northwest.

Petite, quiet and genteel is Mrs Olmstcad, the last person in the world to be suspected of being the centre ol the boiling, cursing, fighting surge ol •rum. rebellion. But just as her husband has a disarming personality so has she, and if he is a paradox his wife is the strangest enigma that so far has baffled the authorities of the

law. The heroine of the story is an aelcomplished violinist and singer, and has had an excellent education. She lived in Liverpool, where m IPlb and

till Christmas Day of 1918 she did valiant work for the British War Department. recruiting men loi u "‘in 1919 she left the Mother Conn-

try fur Montreal. With her site c<iirice a passport vised l»y the W 1 U OM \J. lialfo"r, then Secretary of foreign AlFairn. She also had •> loiter from Sir Auckland Oedcles.-lorm, e,- Ambassador, thanking her tor hoi services during the world war. I" the autumn of m> sho went to Seattle from Vancouver a; • took no her residence there, fnder the name « Vivian Hotter, Miss I’arche opened a heautv parlour in the stylish site distric t of Seattle, and for sev, . months did splendid business >» the Jam! of her adoption. . \ pkoiiihition c■ i.n . Her next move was surprising, heenme an under-eover agent lor the IMM agents. One ol her duties '• work up a ease against lloy Olnwt a the ex-police lieutenant who had woik ed his wav from poverty to the millionaire class in the game oi rum s„n,ogling. She hceame his hookeeper, working in his down town ofhec where he employed a stall o t> use; three telephones, and is said to h.i headed the higgest r,„n-r„.ui,,,g si„ess in America. The pretty determo learned many things. She learned how he operated mx boats from Smugglers ( eve am the leper colony at Darcey Island and Pender Island, to Seattle: how he obtained protection of Ids licet, lmw he undercut the other fellows by paying eash and getting 7 per cent, discount from the Trust; how he heat the Canadian Customs and helped organic the Western I'deighters ; how he s"p--.MI Seattle I t loggers from his , 1( be soiilti -f n.ril y ; lam lie; paid H* dollai s ■' ' 1 " at Smugglers' Cove amt sold, it to Seattle middlemen at till d 'd.i's a iase ; hoev his boats landing at West Waterway invariably gut tlm tin-oil befcire the revenue or prohibition men i ettld swoop clown on them. "HKDTI.MK STOP.IKS." “ (Jet .'l’oy Olnisteacl," the cflic ers told her. She said she wold. i. it \\ hen they were ready to present tinevidence to the (Irand Judy and a-m f n indictment against the rum. sm-igg'-erV king, she hesitated. “ I can t testily against Hoy Olnisteacl," she mid. blushing!;v. " Why not:-" they manchcl. "Because I’m his wile." she replied. She had "got Hoy Oliu-t -ad " Ol instead had been responsible lor many a coup, said the prohibition agents, his greatest being to have divorced his first wife and in--'f -Miss .Parclie his bride. There must hi ve liccii romance as well as ospcre-icc. to the wedding. His famous "Inh.ng vacht,” that was burned was named I'.lsie alter her. She became not: only mistress of his beautiful mansion, tod she became a helpmeet to him. As “Ac.lit Vivien " of ids famous. I0(i,000-:iollar i-aclio. Mrs Olnisteacl every night has been telling the youngsters r-f Om

Rugot .Sound region thrilling oe.Ui'me stories over KI'QX. ()„ November 17th the Olmstend Ini,nu was raided hv proldhition ('.Hirers and the Ulmstoads and Hi others were ■masted. ‘•Aunt. Vivien'’ did not miss a storv. On the evening she pot out „|- gaol she broadcast the story as tl nothing had occurred. _ „ The Federal agents say that Kl' .lX is a broadcasting station for Olmstead’s illicit business of ruin smuggling, and have gone so far as to suggest that the famous bedtime stories are code messages to Hash orders to Canada and to the rum-running ships ■\ f t • <»n

A NOTH El’ HUSBAND? Siiu-o hor arrest every attempt lias been made to “ bang” something on the charming “ Aunt Vivien,” but without success. Immigration authorities have tried to deport her. mil stories have been circulated that she has a husband and family in Canada, Among the contests in the Seattle courts between Olmstcad and the prohibition' authorities, the latest resulted in a victory for Hum Wing, when the enforcement officers were restrained by Court order from disabling or destroying the broadcasting station, from which it is alleged the bedtime stories were really code messages by which smugglers of liquor communicated with confederates in Canada and Japan. Other charges are still pending against Olmstend.