“BOOTLEG” TRADE GROWING

Hokitika Guardian, 2 July 1931, Page 5

“BOOTLEG” TRADE GROWING

PROBLEM IN N.S.W. ILLICIT LIQUOR DEFEATS CUSTOMS. ‘Stealthily, but steadily, fostered by high duties and the depression, there is growing in New South Wales a bootleg trade with an income of many thousands of pounds a year, to its lawless promoters,” said the Sydney “Sun.” “It has, as yet, no leader like A 1 Capone of Chicago infamy; no highlights of organised gangs; hijackers, racketeers, “death rides,” or machinegun raids. But the moonshiners of New South Wales have, during the past five years, increased as their dividends have risen.

“Secrecy is the first law of the businovss. Few owners of illicit stills make the mistake of trying to dispose of their produce direct to the consumer. Cautiously, the bootlegger seeks a retailer who is not above adding to his profits by blending the illicit liquor with matured spirit. Tt pays them both to keep the secret.

DIFFICULT TO DETECT. “But occasionally a neighbour hotices something suspicious about comings alid goings at m certain house, or a whkper from some other source reaches the ears of the police or excise officers, Then a search warrant is issued, a raid is planned, and, as likely as not, in some respectable looking suburban home, usually in one of the less closely-settled areas, there is found the plant by which the liquor is made, with a capacity of from ten to two hundred gallons, “Many a lonely gully, many a modest stream, lias been known to show mysterious lights and to attract to it lovers of more than nature unfermented. Days, weeks, of watching and

shadowing are necessary to secure the required evidence in many cases, though the task of the officers was simplified in one case by the culprit being found dead drunk alongside liis own still.

RAW AND FIERY. “Most of the illicit spirit is heavily over-proof, yielding thereby the better value in the process of blending and breaking down. ‘lf three nips of this don’t make a man fighting drunk, then he’s no man,’ boasted the rueful owner of a rum still when excise officers informed him that the game was up. Legitimate distillers allow the spirit to mature in the wood for at least two years. But the raw spirit straight from tiie bootleg still is something to remember—the morning after.

“The beer bootlegger is the latest product of tho deprPsSioh. Apparently some people are under the Impression that home-made beer Is’ exempt from penalty, if for home eon sumption, when in ■fact, by brewing it, they are liable to a penalty of up to £IOO. Even hop-beer is not always the innocent beverage it might seem to be. Designed as a cordial,’ it has been known to contain up to 10 per cent, of proof spirit. Several persons have been fined for making it. No restriction is placed on private wine-making provided it is not fortified with alcohol or sold without a license, but it is chiefly Italians nnd other wine-

loving foreigners who, so far, have taken advantage of this exemption.