It weren't gained on the straight, them two never did deserve it, it were stolen goods, fenced off the poor for a pittance, or gained elseways in an evil manner in Hannah's vile brothel.

Whenever you strike a frontier—that’s the border of a country, you know—you find a custom-house there, and the gov’ment officers comes and rummages among your things and charges a big tax, which they call a duty because it’s their duty to bust you if they can, and if you don’t pay the duty they’ll hog your sand. They call it confiscating, but that don’t deceive nobody, it’s just hogging, and that’s all it is.

In other words, Jones' career and life may have been derailed because a game of telephone went bad.

The entire operation is conducted from a safe distance by the crane-man, thus eliminating the danger of accident to ground-men, who are usually required for operating a mechanical trip.