SLY-GROG TRADE

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 33, 2 May 1927, Page 9

SLY-GROG TRADE

KING COUNTRY ACTIVITY DODGING THE POLICE HORSE-COLLARS AND WASHTUBS (From Our Own Correspondent.) TAUMARUNUI, To-day. The sly-grog trade in the King Country has attained almost to the dimensions of smuggling in the days before the Excise Act was passed. It is, of course, illegitimate and, unlike other trades, hates publicity. It goes on below the surface and its motto is “Hush, Hush! ” Many are the devices adopted to baffle the scrutiny of the police. The story has become classic of how an illicit liquor merchant of Ongarue in the old days had a curved vessel fitted into an old horse-collar which was being constantly sent to Auckland for repair and returned full of whisky. The journeyings of the itinerant horsecollar finally aroused attention and led the owner to the police court. As most goods reach Taumarunui by rail and as a record of all consignments with the signatures of those who “lift” them appear in the railway books, it becomes a problem for the surreptitious whisky dealer and others to obtain the parcels of liquor before they reach their destination, or else get them away without arousing suspicion. A CLEVER DEALER Even then it is not an easy thing at short notice to get rid of some few dozens of bottles of whisky, but one lady member of the trade was apparently equal to the occasion. When the constables arrived they found her in her wash-house jabbing clothes into the steaming water as housewives will. “Search away! sergeant,” she said, with an airy wave of her hand, “search away—you won’t find any liquor in my house.” And she continued to jab vigorously. They searched and, sure enough, found nothing, but if they had looked in the copper they would have had a fine haul. As people can bring in liquor quite legitimately if it is for their own consumption the unlicensed publican will often get his friends to lend their

names and have liquor consigned to them. When these resources fail, and they do fail owing to the large volume of the trade, recourse is had to the more risky method of consigning the parcels of liquor, declared as such, to some reputable resident of the district, without asking his permission, and getting a carrier to sign for them in the usual way. A variation of this method is to label the packets of liquor as groceries, soft goods, confectionery or chemists’ goods and direct them to merchants trading in these commodities, the lifting being done as before. A BIG THIRST The other day in Taumarunui a case which came before the court revealed a very elaborate system. The accused, according to the evidence of the police, had agents in Auckland who sent him supplies of liquor under such disguises as the above and with the same device of addressing them to local residents who had not ordered them. The carrier who lifted the goods was fined by the S.M., but has appealed. Elis principal has elected to be tried at the Supreme Court. The most noteworthy point in the case is the magnitude of the supplies brought in. Reckoning the whisky at 10s a bottle the value of the consignments during a period of some months reached a total, of £427. If this were sold at double the cost, which is a reasonable estimate, it means that nearly a thousand pounds has been spent during that interval in liquor. And this, be it observed, is only what Tias been found out. Probably if the value of all the liquor brought in legitimately, and illegitimately, were known it would be a, surprising figure for a dry area. Yet Taumarunui is a town in which drunkenness is never seen in the streets —a most law-abiding town and pleasant to live in.