Browse:Hog Bladder (Volume 1, entries 580)
Hog Bladder
Volume 1, entries 580. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → DIAGNOSIS. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 580
I remember when the town [Hampton, Virginia] first went dry and they didn't allow any bootlegging, so they said, and two or three people got caught with their whiskey and a stiff fine was put upon them. So thereafter there came a man from Newport News [Virginia] to Hampton, going from one place to another, saying he could prevent the law from coming to my house and that I could go and sell all the whiskey I wanted to and the law could not bother me. So I took it in my charge that I would try him. I had taken in my house fifty gallons of liquor and I began to distribute it from one place to the other. Sometimes I would look out and see the law coming and was wondering whether or not they were coming to my house. I can say with a clear conscience that the day I saw the man and paid him one hundred and fifty-three dollars and fifty-three cents for this instrument, and I can say and witness the fact, that the law has never been to my house since that occasion. He gave me an instrument and told me to hang it by my stove and leave it stay there, and whensoever I saw the law coming, to take it down and put it on the table and the law would turn around and go back. It kin'a resembled a hog bladder or something of that sort. When the law was coming in your direction, this instrument would puff out, and you could always look out your casement and see the law; and then you would take it down and put it on the table, and the law would turn around and go back. Then this bag would come down to its normal size.