New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4511, 4 September 1875, Page 2

New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4.

Recent telegraphic advices from America noticed the breaking np, by a sudden and unexpected stroke, of what was known as a “Whisky Ring.” Our common knowledge of America enables us to a certain extent to guess that by this was meant some system of public fraud and peculation. America has long been notorious for the existence of systems of public swindling, and it merely needed the use of the words ‘ ‘ whisky ” and “ ring ” to tell us that the last swindle exposed was connected with whisky. But as to the absolute process of fraud, its extent, and the manner of its defeat, we should be ignorant were it not for the copious details in the matter furnished to us by our files of American papers. From these it is evident that the existence of the “ Whisky Ring,” as it was called, had been more than suspected for years, but that, like many another fraud, its nature was so “ gigantic,” the men engaged in maintaining it so wealthy, and its ramifications were so extended, that it was tacitly accepted as a species of institution similar to the New York Municipal system of corruption, or the Erie line chicanery. It had its nature thus simply: The whisky manufacturers were accustomed to make grossly fraudulent returns of the quantities of spirits manufactured by them, as a matter of fact making the returns represent not quite half of the actual quantities sent into the - market. They have been thus enabled to escape payment of excise duties for years on a perfectly enormous quantity of spirits. Of course they were only enabled to do this by means of wholesale bribery of the officials whose duty it was to check, by inspection at the distilleries, the actual amount manufactured. The principal seats of whisky manufacture in the States are St. Louis, Chicago, and Milwaukee, and these, therefore, formed the centre of the whisky ring. As we have said, the existence of the swindle was perfectly well known, but the superior officers of excise at Washington found themselves quite powerless in the way of detection, it being impossible to keep the subordinates at the locality of the ring out of the atmosphere of bribery which covered everything there. The losses sustained by the general revenue may be generally comprehended when the results of some of the discoveries made after the breaking up of the ring are shown. Messrs. Bevis, Erazer, and Co., distillers, of St. Louis, were shown to have made actual shipments to a spirit dealer of New York during a period of two months of 26,425 gallons, whilst they returned as their shipments, and paid duty on 12,277 gallons. The centre of the ring, as stated, was at St. Louis, Chicago, and Milwaukee ; but as a matter of fact, its operations and influences extended to every part of the country in which whisky was dealt in and drunk. The exposure and detection of the ring was due to two journalists, Messrs. Eishback and Colony, of the St. Louis Democrat. The first of these gentlemen made communication to the Secretary of the Treasury, and the second was appointed by the Treasury a special agent, and given sufficient means to ensure the efficacy of his work. And it is well to note, as showing how wholesale had corruption become that communications between those gentlemen and the Treasury by telegraph had to be carried on in a new cipher ; for it was found that otherwise the telegraph clerks would have disclosed what was impending to the whisky manufacturers. Even as it was, some suspicion was aroused, and persons appointed to watch the quantities of grain sent in, and spirits brought out from distilleries, were nearly beaten to death. Nay, even until the last moment, the Secretary of the Treasury did not communicate with the Excise Department at Washington, and that this was a necessary precaution was proved by the fact that almost immediately after communications had been made, mysterious telegraphic warnings were sent by wire to the whisky manufacturers. The warnings, however, came too late, for one morning, as the telegrams informed us, thirty distilleries were seized, and the robberies of their owners made patent. This robbery was carried on under quite a perfect system of spoliation. For some time, and during the earliest stages, the three classes of gentry engaged in the robbery, the distillers, the dealers, and the revenue officers, had squabbled over their share in the plunder ; but this was at last equitably settled by giving to the former sixty per cent., and to the two latter twenty per cent, each of which sums the revenue had been systematically defrauded. The American papers calculated this sum at somewhere about 1,200,000 dollars a year during the last four years.