Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 298, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1911 — APT AS SMUGGLERS [ARTICLE]

APT AS SMUGGLERS

Women Show Remarkable Ingenuity in Getting Pets Through. One Was Detected When “Baby" Barked and Another Was Caught Giving Animal Drug to Prevents Its Making Noise. Dover. —The days when bold, bad smugglers ran their boatloads of rum and brandy and tobacco Into secret coves and caves on the seashore are gone. The smugglers of'today are women, aqd their cargo is often dogs. The devices which they are now adopting to evade the customs officers and the quarantine law of the land are as ingenious as they are amasing. Twice women hafi boon charged here With attempting to smuggle dogs in by concealing them in pockets in their underclothing. They would have succeeded in their intentions,’ too, but for the dogs having yelped and betrayed their mistresses. But popular—and often successful — aa is this hidden pocket dodge. It la commonplace beside some of the methods of dog smugglers which have recently been attempted at Dover. "A woman, a nurse and ant Infant In long clothes," said a customs officer, “boarded the steamer at Calais. They immediately abut themselves in a cabin, and were not seen again till Dover was reached, except by the customs men on board, who wars quite

satisfied that they had no contraband with them. “At Dover, however, when the party was coming, ashore, the ‘infant,’ whose head was completely muffled In lace and muslin, barked. Here 1b another stqry, the would-be smuggler in this Instance being a man: “A traveling rug on his arm excited suspicion. He was stopped and the rug examined, and found te contain three little pockets* In each of which was a valuable tiny dog. "He was fined $75 and the dogs were put In quarantine." The sailor to whom I spoke once happened to glance inside a cabin, occupied by two women passengers t,o Dover, Just before the customs men entered ft. One woman was giving a little dog a t-hlff of something out of a bottle—probably chloroform; the other was busy making up a “parcei" of wraps, etc. A cushion was thrown carelessly over the Insensible dog, and the officers did not trouble to look underneath it When the women, left the boat they had the dog concealed In the parcel, which had been "passed." And these by no means exhaust the means which women employ to smuggle their pets. . They suspend them In bags from their necks. Women who do this always wear well buttoned up coats or else plenty of furs. They put them In big pockets of loose "overcoats." They carry them In their muffs, one

hand holding the dog inside the This is a frequently tried trick at te»sons when muffs can be worn without exciting suspicion. "We catch about one a month," another customs officer said, "but far every one we do ‘spot’ twenty or thirty must escape us. ‘‘lf a dog does not bark or wriggle at the wrong moment and if It is so skillfully tucked away as not to impede movement, a woman who has her pet hidden somewhere in her dress Is practically certain to pf us scot free. Women, it seems, rarely trust to the smuggling powers of their men where dogs are concerned. 11118, aft first sight, may seem curious, for a man could very often get a dog*safely through In one of his big pockets. But perhaps the reason lies deeper. The following Shavian dictum is regarded as a truism by the customs officers: ■■■„ "A man Is generally more honest than a woman; if you challenge him. and he has contraband, he usually owns up.”