In the summer of 5675 (1915) I was in Pinsk, lodging with R. Yisroel Yitzchak Lubinsky, the celebrated chossid known for davening in Yiddish translation every word of ketores, and I remember hearing this story from him:
The Rebbe Maharash would always say that every matter should be heard as it seems ( azoy) and answered as it seems, that is to say, in a general manner.
Once in Semyanovka, in the province of Chernigov, the government found out that they were appropriating alcohol from the factory, that is, without paying any taxes to the government. A major trial was scheduled for thirteen defendants, and R. Yisroel Yitzchak was to be a witness. To run the trial, a well-known investigator, Stalietov, was coming up from Petersburg.
R. Yisroel Yitzchak traveled to the Rebbe Maharash in Lubavitch and explained that, since many Yidden were facing five-year prison terms, he requested that the Rebbe listen to him in detail. And he started reciting: If Stalietov asks him this, then he will respond with that — in short, a number of questions which he knew to answer. But if he were to ask him such-and- such a question — then what should he answer?
The Rebbe Maharash replied, “You are a young man with intelligence (guteh kup ), and you are a Yid, who is not caught up in pleasures. Stalietov is a goy, and without a particularly good mind, and he is caught up in pleasures — it will never occur to him to ask such questions. ”
And so it was. The trial ended favorably.