OCR Text |
Show ' went around into tho scalo-houso. Tak-' ing tho seat in tho corner, I ran my hand down where my companion's had been a moment before. As I sat where a company checker had sat every day for years, Just by my left knee was a thick post supporting ono ond of tho j Rhelf beneath tho scale bar. Under ; the shelf was a system of lovers and joints which, -formed the connection between the rcglBtering-beam and tho rod leading; to the platform outside. Between the post and the end wall of the 6cale-house was a space perhaps a foot wide, aa dark as a pockot. The strip worked loosely in a hole in tho post, and as I pushed It through, its inner end ran over a Joint of the scale mechanism. . It was easy to see how the spring of steel would exert forco upon the levers and make the register-, lug-beam drop. " 'We've found,' said my companion, 'that a pressuro of one ounce Just at that point is good for a loss of fortyr eight ounces on tho platform outsido. You seo now where those eight pounds went to that you lost so miraculously.' miracul-ously.' " HOW THE GOVERNMENT WAS ROBBED. That the Sugar Trust will stoop to a form of highway robbery Is evident in its confession of defrauding the gov-ornment gov-ornment out of over a million dollars by short-weighting sugar as it is received re-ceived from foreign countries. A writer in The Outlook tells how the government govern-ment was robbed: "As the sugar comes over the side of tho ship' it is weighed by the customs cus-toms officers, and to that end there are seventeen big Fairbanks scales placed at intervals along the docks. Each scale has a platform eight or ten feet square, its surface flush with the surface sur-face of the dock, like the scales that you have seen ro often outside a coal-dealers coal-dealers or a feed-store. The brasa bar ot the scale, where the weight is read, Li within a little houso fronted with glass, so that the weigher can see the platform and what Is on it as he ad-Justs ad-Justs tho poise. These scales, it bbould be remembered, belong to the company, and its representatives keep tho keys of the scale-houae, and are supposed to lock them every night. "A few weeks ago I stood upon the platrorm of one of these scales, looking look-ing through the glass side of the scale-house. scale-house. Behind tho registering-bar, facing mo, two men eat, each with a small blank-book on the ledge before him. The man on my left pushed the poise along the beam till it balanced, and read off my weight, '170 pounds.' Both men recorded the figures on their books. Then tho other man leaned over to the left and dropt his hand into the dark comer under the ledge. Once more tho weigher adjusted tho poise-but poise-but now the beam balanced at 162 pounds. In 'wo minutes I had, without with-out knowing how, been robbed of S pounds of weight "Stepping from the scale platform, I |