Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1910 — Smugglers and Smuggling [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Smuggl ers and Smuggling

In the days of the Georges smuggling was so popular a calling in England and the smuggler so popular a gentleman even with some of the landed gentry, in whose ancient country mansions special chimney recesses have been found especially constructed to shield from detection the imported brandies which had slipped into tl*e country without reporting to the king’s customs officers, that even the sedate and high-minded Scotchman, Adam Smith, classified the contraband traffic as a trade albeit one of great hazard. That the smuggling of the eighteenth century had reached a high degree of perfection is shown in the laws aimed at those engaged in the practice, writes H. B. Chamberlain, in the Chicago Record Herald. Vessels carrying undeclared goods were forfeitable, as were the goods; high inducements were offered to informers who would betray their fellow workers; persons maimed in arresting smugglers were entitled to a reward of £SO; informers guilty of sordid, selfish treachery were given the same .amount for each person convicted on their testimony and the informers were granted immunity. Smugglers were whipped and transported to the plantations. In 1746 assembling to run contraband goods was made punishable by death as a felony. Ah the offenses multiplied and the popularity of the smugglers made it difficult to capture them, counties were made liable for their deeds. But the smuggler of that period is no longer extant. Like the Indian scout, the buffalo and the desperado of the Western plains, he has been crowded out by a complicated civilization. He could flourish only in a thinly populated country, with a coast offering to him inlets and harbors where fie could in safety land his cargo. In these days of the wireless and populous, cities and great trans-Atlan-tic steamers he must assume another form and pursue different methods. Cunning rather than strength or knowledge of waves and winds is the requisite qualification of the modern smuggler. Hence women are as well able to engage in it as men, and, indeed, the facts prove that they seem to have an especial aptitude in this line. The false-bottomed trunk is so old a device that the unsophisticated wonder why anyone should trust to it. For surely every inspector knows of this contrivance for concealing goods. But, as has been shown by the wholesale dismissal of employes from the customs service in New York, inspectors have not been obstreperously efficient in guarding the interests of their country. In these days smuggling on a large scale invariably produces the suspicion that there has been collusion with the government officials. This was shown to be true in a case at New York. Early in November a member of a cheese importing firm, was sentenced to a year in prison and to pay a fine of |5,000 for defrauding this government, of duties by misstating the weight of cheese Imported. To carry out this fraud it was necessary for the government weigher to falsify his report to fit the figures of the false invoice sent by the exporter from Europe. Four government weighers turned state’s evidence and told how this had been done, and evidence gathered from the books and records of purchasers corroborated the stories of these informers, who were offered immunity from prosecution and retained in the customs service. The culprit testified that the frauds had been suggested to him by the government weighers who shared with him the money thus kept from the government. The $2,000,000 which the sugar trust has fraudulently withheld from the government by means of an ingenious device applied secretly to the scales for weighing the sugar and operated by employes of the company is an example of the large scale on Vhlch evasion of payment of duties can be practiced in this century and country of large things. When souvenir spoons were more popular than now, women returning from Europe sometimes fastened them to the waistbands of their inner skirts or made extra pockets for carrying them. Women’s garments have, always offered good hiding places and it is a delicate matter to ask a woman passenger who appears refined and gentle to submit to an inspection. Mistakes are sometimes made and then vast is the Indignation. As long ago as 1731 the English customs officers were Instructed. when they suspected “women

of fashion” carrying customable goods to call in the services of a female searcher “in whom they could confide.” Now women are regularly employed for the purpose of searching women suspected of carrying about their person dutiable goods which they have not declared. On the continent of Europe, a French Mrs. Jarley traveled from France into the adjoining countries with her display of wax figures. She had done this often, but on one of her trips one of the figures fell, was broken, and disclosed its contents to be fine lace. So each figure then gave up silk or lace or linen. > In England oil cans with their interiors consisting of a tin funnel have been discovered. When the customs officer put a stick into the can, turned it around and then drew .it out, he found that it was stained with oil, as stated by the importer. But the upper bulging sides of the can held spirituous liquors. Another oft-told tale is that of th« ornithologist who prepared birds foi scientific associations and savants oi Europe. Also in his lonely working hours he talked to his pet parrot When poll had been up to some naughty prank he must have inadver tently threatened her, for once when he was passing the customs house this parrot cried out; “Oh, Pott, when you are dead I shall stuff you with laces.” And so it was discovered that all his birds were thus stuffed. Last month two fashionable dressmakers of Boston were arrested charged with smuggling women’s apparel from France. The customs officials say this is the beginning of the exposure of one of* the cleverest and boldest smuggling conspiracies evter hatched to slip valuable imports into this country. The method followed was to leave trunks unexamlned on board the ship with the understanding that they would go back to Europe with their owners unopened. Then these trunks were quietly slipped off the ship after the customs house officials had inspected the other baggage. That a widespread rottenness has tainted the customs service at New York is shown in the shake-up recently given by Collector Loeb. It may be that inspectors, frightened by the discharge of their fellows, may now give honest attention to their work. But a high and. complicated tariff offers a temptation to smuggling which is difficult to offset.