Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 August 1875 — French Custom-House Frauds. [ARTICLE]

French Custom-House Frauds.

We are perpetually hearing, writes the Paris correspondent of the London Standard, of new frauds upon the Custom-House, in which the ingenuity of unpolitical Frenchmen finds just now its favorite field of exercise. The last case reported shows masterly skill. Two men had been going about with samples of untaxed brandy, which they mysteriously offered at a very low price to such persons as they thought likely to buy. If the sample and price were accepted—which they always were, say the police—they brought a fifty-litre cask, with all secrecy. The cabaretier, suspicious, of course, with such sellers, had full liberty to tap it where he pleased, and he did so. Each hole of the gimlet brought forth cognac equal to sample, the men received their price, and the cabaretier, in high delight, carried off the cask for hot. tling. All went well for the first few litres; then the run of brandy stopped. On shaking the cask a sound was heard of gurgling liquid, but nothing would come through the bung-hole. After much trial and tribulation the secret was disoovered. In the fifty-litre cask a smaller one, holding forty-eight litres, was suspended, full of water. Only as much brandy had been provided as would fill the space between the barrels. These clever gentlemen took care not to make themselves too well known in one quarter, but the other day a victim spied them just delivering a cask, and they were taken red-handed. On reflection, however, the prosecutor thought it best to vanish, and the prisoners declare that their cognac has duly paid its lawful tax. As to the suspicious barrel, they say that they kept it and carried it about as a curiosity.

A man who owns a book-store facetiously remarked that he couldn’t leave Chicago this summer because he kept stationery. Smarty heard him and went away to spring it for a joke. This is the way he sprung it: “Mitchell can’t go oat of town this summer. Why?” “Don’t know-” “ Because he sells books and papers.” And he never can understand why the other fellow don’t laugh. Hundred-year-old people are getting plenty. A correspondent of the Pittsburgh Gazette writes to that paper from Tylersburg, Clarion County, Pa.: “Mr. and Mrs. Alio, a couple residing within one mile of this place, are centenarians. The old gentleman was 100 years old in May last, and the old lady celebrates her 100th birthday this August,. and she is able to shake hay this harvest.” The car of progress has the axles oiled occasionally. The excavators of the San Fernando tunnel on the line of the Southern Pacific Railway-have struck a rich petroleum spring.