A VANISHING ROMANCE 213 
of owning the still found so near his house. This was 
a coincidence which did not concern him. Neither 
did he come too often nor too secretly. It was whis- 
pered that it was not to the interest of the revenuer 
to destroy so good an excuse for his own office. 
Of course a good deal depended upon the quality of 
the " revenuer " assigned to a district, but even that 
could be arranged, it not being unheard of for the 
brother or other near relative of a notorious moon- 
shiner to be elected to that discreet office. There are 
a good many ways to evade an unpopular law in a 
country where the majority is "agin the govern- 
ment." Even the licensed stills have been known to 
be operated most successfully by clever moonshiners 
who knew how to satisfy the demands of the inspec- 
tor and at the same time manipulate the machinery 
in a way to make licensed distilling pay as well as 
that not licensed. 
It would be hasty to affirm that "blockade" is no 
longer made in the mountains, but it is not now made 
in the free-and-easy manner and on the compara- 
tively large scale of former years, although as a mat- 
ter of fact the amount of whiskey manufactured in 
the little mountain stills has never been worth the 
cost of trying to restrain it. 
In these days those rows of demijohn-shaped jugs 
in which Traumfest used to transport her "vinegar" 
are no more seen standing on the platform of the 
railway station. It is astonishing the amount of 
vinegar that used to go out of Traumfest, in jugs. 
It had a powerful alcoholic smell, this vinegar, but 
