Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 71, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 April 1918 — Make Fortunes by Smuggling [ARTICLE]

Make Fortunes by Smuggling

Traders Run Goods From Finland Into Sweden, Bringing Enormous Returns. AIDED BY FRONTIER LAXITY Haparanda Is the Dawson of Sweden's New Klondike Where Gold and Wine Flow Freely—Typical Night Scene. o Tornea, Russia. —The Tornea river is frozen over again and business is good in smugglers’ haven. From far up in the Arctic tuiidra of Lapland down to ice-tilled Tornea bay, 30 miles south of the circle, sledges drawn by reindeer, dogs and ponies are crunching across the river by night, laden to the runners with tea, coffee, rubber and sugar, all bound for I Sweden, where they are worth almost j their weight in gold. Their sources are Russia and Finland, and their immediate destination Haparanda, on the Swedish side of the Tornea river, where ex-sailors, hotel waiters and a typical collection of frontier town types are making money hand over fist and drinking champagne for breakfast. Haparancla is Swedish, as different from war distracted and revolutionridden Russian, Tornea as if it were hundreds of miles away, instead of being separated only by a ten-minute sleigh ride in winter and a ten-minute ferry trip in summer, across the milewide, salmon-filled river. Haparanda Is the Dawson of the new Klondike, and its gold comes from sledges that slip by the Russian frontier guards,’ full of the commodities Sweden needs. It is nearly Arctic, and in the heart of winter, there is daylight only five hours. Frontier Customs Post Before the war Haparanda was a tiny village, a frontier customs post The Russian frontier gendarmes were vigilant and those who slipped through from Finland with smuggled goods were very few and far between, and there was less incentive to smuggle, for Sweden imported freely from across the seas. The war made Tornea the rival of Archangel and Vladivostok as a port of entry into Russia. Haparanda shared the gain. Business buildings of wood and a large hotel that looks like a typical American small town hall sprang up almost overnight. It is still growing. The goose that lays the golden egg that buys wine and keeps the poker games going lives over in Finland, which, although short of food itself, permits millions of kroner worth to slip through every month. A year ago a Swedish preacher, on an innocent mission, was shot by a Russian frontier guard. The trouble that resulted led to almost complete laxity at the frontier, and now on any dark night scores of sleighs slip across the river, unmolested, and deposit their cargoes on the Swedish side. Some of the goods go through the Swedish customs houses, and the duty is paid. Even with the Swedish duty there is tremendous profit on the shipments. Coffee that the Finnish agents secure for ten kroner a kilo (2.20 pounds) brings 20 across the frontier. Small boys, muffled In great overcoats, waddle across the river on skiis with rubber tires for automobiles wrapped around their waists—and rubber is the most difficult of all commercial products to obtain Ib Sweden. Its export from Russia Is forbidden. “Gay White Way” Always Filled. The smugglers are the richest, but Haparanda's “Gay White Way”—the hotel —Is filled always with other spenders. Here is a typical picture 6f any night In Hapgranda when business Is good on the Tornea. The coffee room Is crowded early. A Serbian “kappelmeister” tunes up his violin. A young Austrian with a bass viol and three plump, smiling German girls, with mandolins, the rest of the orchestra, play American ragtime. Swedish barmaids hurry about with champagne and other wines, just as expensive. A young Swede, with a blank-look-ing face, who has just made 10,000

kroner on a coffee deal, is spending It, buying for every one who will accept. At a corner table, ,tips.v hut dignified, a group of Swedish officers stiffly reject such familiarity. At the other tables are Russian officers, in civilian clothes, who have slipped across from prohibition Tornea to make a night of it; Finnish smugglers, over for the same purpose, and perhaps a dozen Englishmen, Americans or Frenchmen, jus£ escaped’ from Russia's troubles and stopping until the night train for Stockholm, all glad for a breath of ga.vety in a neutral town. This is any night—but on “punch days,” the three days each month when it is permitted to sell britndy and other spirits, the line of sledges that cross the Tornea is continuous, and in the bedlam of noises the “knppelmeister” and his players cannot make themselves heard. So they make it unanimous and join the crowd.