Out of Bondage

In the U. S. are 27 warehouses in which 15,000,000 gallons of liquor are stored. The liquor is private property held for legal sale as medicine. In bonded storage the U. S. stands stern guard over it, with agents to gauge its quantity, to test its quality, to control its withdrawal for drug-store purpose. Last week its was revealed in Chicago that some 50,000 gallons of such closely-guarded liquor had somehow gotten out of government bondage. It was the biggest "escape" of its kind in the history of Prohibition.

In Sibley Warehouse reposed between 3,000 and 4,000 barrels, 50,000 cases of ten-and twelve-year-old Bourbon. Protecting it were 31, government gaugers and storekeepers. Some 250 dry agents could come and go in the warehouse premises. Craftily, more than 500 barrels, 2,000 cases were tapped, their fuming contents siphoned out. Back inside was poured a concoction of colored water and alcohol which would show the proper proof to deceive gaugers but which even a "sick" person would never mistake for old whiskey. For a year these illegal extractions at Sibley Warehouse had been in progress, evidently, before their full extent was disclosed to Commissioner of Prohibition James M. Doran, who, last week in Washington, sat frowning at an 84-page report. At 'legger prices, the liquor theft, directly under the nose of U. S. agents, amounted to some $2,000,000.

The agents logically came under suspicion first. A Grand Jury was asked to fix the blame. Nor did the government consider the owners of the lost liquor, the holders of the warehouse certificates, altogether blameless. Many of them were supposed to be onetime saloon keepers who had not wholly lost interest in liquor sales.

The other 26 liquor warehouses throughout the land were hastily checked by the U. S. agents, in search of similar escapes from bondage.