Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 130, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1914 — Valuable Chinese Medicine. [ARTICLE]

Valuable Chinese Medicine.

Curious experiences occasionally come to administrators of even so prosaic a department as the customs.' A Sydney correspondent tells of one which recently befell Mr. N. Colston Lockyer, the Federal Assistant Comp-troller-General. Above the mantelpiece In his office is nailed a sun dried lizard. It had been imported by an enterprising Chinese merchant, who desired Mr. Lockyer to take particular note of it and instruct his officers as to its nature and the amount of duty chargeable on similar consignments in bulk. ’The Chinaman explained that dried lizard 4vas a very important item in the pharmacopaeia of the Celestial Empire, and when ground to powder possessed medicinal properties of untold value. The officers of the department were at a loss to know how to classify the article, their choice apparently lying between drug, preserved food and prohibited vermin. Mr. Lockyer cut the Gordian knot by classifying the “medicine lizard" as “unenumerated” and admitting it duty free.