Contraband trade in Illinois--Seizure of medicines, &c.
--From a Cairo letter in the Louisville
Journal, under date of the 7th inst., we make the following extracts:
The contraband trade is still carried on to a considerable extent from the
Illinois shore in the vicinity of
Metropolis.
About the first of this month a large amount of glut braid and lace, with valuable medicines, was captured by
Dr. Arter,
Surveyor of the port of
Cairo.
They were discovered hidden under some logs on the shore, near where some negroes were seen to be hovering in a boat with muffled cars.
Most of these goods it is ascertained came from
Cincinnati.
Captain Stewart, of the Independent Cavalry, has for two weeks past been scouring the country in
Southern Illinois, between the Illinois Central Railroad and the
Mississippi river, for a distance of fifty miles, in the hunt of smugglers.
During the ‘"rampage"’ he arrested a number of parties accused of and engaged in this business.
No very severe punishment was inflicted on them, but he has so completely scared these lawbreakers as to stop their operations altogether.
Some twelve negroes — runaways — came into our lines at
Fort Holt yesterday.
They reported that they had been collected together by a party of rebels, to be sent to
Columbus to work on the entrenchments there, and an opportunity having offered itself while their masters were at dinner, they seized four or five of their horses and made their escape to our lines.
Col. Cook, commander of
Fort Holt, ordered them outside the
Federal lines again, when they procured some axes, and said they would build themselves cabins and stay there rather than return.
This is the report.
A short time after their arrival, two more came into camp, having with them four cavalry horses, with which they made their escape.
These last two purported to have come from
Columbus, where they had been at work, assuming at the same time to have important information from there.
