s were confirmed as chief justice of
the United States,--a contingency which did not arise. As secretary of the
treasury (1874-1876) he prosecuted with vigour the so-called "Whisky Ring,"
the headquarters of which was at St Louis, and which, beginning in 1870 or
1871, had defrauded the Federal government out of a large part of its
rightful revenue from the distillation of whisky. Distillers and revenue
officers in St Louis, Milwaukee, Cincinnati and other cities were
implicated, and the illicit gains--which in St Louis alone probably
amounted to more than $2,500,000 in the six years 1870-1876--were divided
between the distillers and the revenue officers, who levied assessments on
distillers ostensibly for a Republican campaign fund to be used in
furthering Grant's re-election. Prominent among the ring's alleged
accomplices at Washington was Orville E. Babcock, private secretary to
President Grant, whose personal friendship for Babcock led him to
indiscreet interference in the prosecution. Through Bristow's efforts more
than 200 men were indicted, a number of whom were convicted, but after some
months' imprisonment were pardoned. Largely owing to friction between
himself and the president, Bristow resigned his portfolio in June 1876; as
secretary of the treasury he advocated the resumption of specie payments
and at least a partial retirement of "greenbacks"; and he was also an
advocate of civil service reform. He was a prominent candidate for the
Republican presidential nomination in 1876. After 1878 he practised law in
New York City, where he died on the 22nd of June 1896.

See _Memorial of Benjamin Helm Bristow_, largely prepared by David Willcox
(Cambridge, Mass., privately printed, 1897); _Whiskey Frauds_, 44th Cong.,
1st Sess., Mis. Doc. No. 186; _Secrets of the Great Whiskey Ring_ (Chicago,
1880), by John McDonald, who for nearly six years had been supervisor of
internal revenue at St Louis,--a book by one concerned and to be considered
in that light.

BRISTOW, HENRY WILLIAM (1817-1889), English geologist, son of Major-General
H. Bristow, who served in the Peninsular War, was born on the 17th of May
1817. He was educated at King's College, London, under John Phillips, then
professor of geology. In 1842 he was appointed assistant geologist on the
Geological Survey, and in that service he remained for forty-six years,
becoming director for England and Wales in 1872, and retiring in 1888. He
was elected F.R.S. in 1862