A Boy's Fishing Line Hauls Up 20 Pounds of Smuggled Opium
Lucky children and treasury agents netted a smuggler's jettisoned cargo from under Seattle's wharves — and the owner was never found.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Yesterday seems to have been a good day for opium finding, no less than three packages having been picked up in the harbor, aggregating more than 40 pounds.
Lem Miller, a boy 14 years of age who is mate on the tug Violet, was the first lucky one. He was fishing off the Hatfield-Colman wharf and his hook caught something floating near the surface. He could not get it loose and on pulling it up found he had 20 pounds of opium — quite a high-priced fish. He thought at first it was tobacco. He immediately notified the custom officials and turned the stuff over to them. His reward will probably be over $100.
About the same time another boy brought into the customs house five cans, two and a half pounds, which he had picked up further down the beach.
These two finds excited the curiosity of Special Treasury Agent Nettleton, and he started out in a boat with Deputy Inspector Guptill. They rowed around under the wharves and were shortly rewarded with a find of a package containing twenty pounds under the wharves near the foot of Spring street. It is evident the stuff had been pitched overboard from some boat when the inspectors were after them, and the owner was unable to find it.
“He thought at first it was tobacco. He immediately notified the custom officials and turned the stuff over to them.”
In 1892 the opium traffic moved by water through Puget Sound just as surely as container ships and smugglers work these same wharves today. Then, as now, the contraband was cheaper to ditch than to be caught with — and it was boys fishing off the piers who stumbled onto the stash.
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