Opium Hidden on the Great Northern
Inspectors arrest two Toronto jewelers on a southbound train at Whatcom and seize 95 half-pint cans of prepared opium.
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.
WHATCOM, Aug. 12.—[Special.]—Inspectors Pttnger and Lamer arrested two smugglers today on the Great Northern train and secured ninety-five half-pint cans, forty-five pounds of prepared opium. The men give the names of S. Lyons and Dietzel, and say they are jewelers from Toronto. They got aboard a Great Northern south-bound train at Ferndale. They are now in jail.
“Inspectors ... arrested two smugglers today on the Great Northern train and secured ninety-five half-pint cans, forty-five pounds of prepared opium.”
Whatcom County's rail corridor has long been a smuggling route; this 1894 bust reads like a border-and-drug case in period dress. The opium trade also intersected with anti-Chinese politics and the first federal drug laws, showing how crime scares and racial exclusion often traveled together.
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