Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1911 — Smuggling Extraordinary. [ARTICLE]

Smuggling Extraordinary.

One of the most ingenious tricks was that originated by a band of clever Parisian rogues. A coffin, supposed to contain the dead body of a man wire had died of diphtheria, was dispatched from the gay city for burial in London. It was met at the railway terminus in this country, and conveyed at nightfall tb a house not far from the Mile End road, Whitechapel. Everything would have passed off as desired and planned had not a policeman on duty become suspicious on seeing a particularly large coffin being taken out of a hearse into a bouse that was known to be the habitation of men who had done penal servitude. After the funeral party had shut their door, and the hearse had driven away, the policeman secured assistance and knocked at the door. It was found that the coffin, instead of containing a corpse, was filled tightly with cakes of tobacco, dozens of boxes of cigars and other excisable- goods. The “mourners” were immediately arrested and the goods confiscated.