Laredo Weekly Times

"GUM-SHOED" OFFICERS MAKE IMPORTANT CAPTURE BOOZE TWO SETS OF OFFICERS PRODUCED IT FROM TWO ANGLES

Finally While One Was Off Guard Other Seized it and Official Test Made in District Attorney's Office.

Here is one on the patrons of the bootleggers, as well as on the officers who were ensconced in a chaparral thicket "lying low" to nab a pair of gents from the southern side of the boundary line as they were about to make delivery of one of their cargoes to somebody on the American side of the line, and that "somebody" should be thankful that the alert officers saved them the embarrassment of disappointment to their palates when it called for the real stuff.

On Tuesday night, the night marshal, Candelario Mendiola, received a "tip" that certain parties were planning the delivery of a cargo of wet goods and that they had a Quaker Oats carton containing the goods secreted at a certain place in the Arroyo Zacate, Mendiola and another officer proceeded to the scene and secreted themselves nearby after locating the clandestine cargo and awaited developments. While they were not watching Police Officer Santiago Sanchez sneaked up from another direction as two men had appeared to take charge of the carton and scared them away before Mendiola et al realized their presence.

Sanchez confiscated the cargo and put it in a car and came to the city hall, while Mendiola et al later discovered its absence and also came to the city hall.

Yesterday morning Mendiola delivered the cargo to District Attorney Valls. In the absence of the official tester, Hal Brennan was asked to place a few drops of the booze to his ruby lips and pronounce its constituency. Hal quickly pronounced it "tea." Ditto P. P. Leyendecker, who was present. Applying the bottle to the end of his smeller, District Attorney Valls took a whiff of it and pronounced it "tea." Then the seventeen other bottles were opened and put to the test and all proved to be "tea."

The tea was in aguardiente-labeled and sealed bottles and looked like the real stuff, and had the bootleggers been successful in making the delivery there would have been some awfully disappointed patrons of the bootleggers in Laredo, and the joke would have been on them instead of the officers. So these folks owe the officers a debt of gratitude, for any good wife can satisfy the insatiable thirst of her husband with "tea," and it would not come near as expensive as pseudo aguardiente.