Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1884 — Custom-House Examining Inspectors at Work. [ARTICLE]

Custom-House Examining Inspectors at Work.

Baggage is landed and deposited in separate piles, according tp the initials of the owners’ names, the proper label having been affixed on the steamer. The .places are designated by huge letters on the wall of the shed. c If there are many Smiths aboard, for instance, there will be a crowded congregation of trunks and owners about S. The examining inspectors are already drawn up in line across the dock, and nothing passes them without due scrutiny. Wearied travelers, who can leave their matters in the hands of friends, are relieved of further waiting, and after quick search of wraps and valises are allowed to depart in peace. As each individual’s baggage is brought together, he notifies the staff officer, and hands oyer his ticket. The officer selects the corresponding declaration, writes the name of an inspector—whom he calls fom the line—upon it, and directs immediate examination. This is usually sufficiently thorough. Inspectors, through long practice, become involuntary disciples of Lavater, and such expert critics of human nature that they almost intuitively detect attempted fraud. Dutiable articles not declared as such, are brought out, valued by the attendant appraiser, entered with value attached on the dclar- 7 ation, and the owner is obliged to pay the requisite duty to a clerk in attendance for the purpose of receiving it. The inspector also signs his name to the declaration. The efficiency and courtesy of the Deputy Surveyor, and also of the inspectors on the dock, together with the delicate discharge of their not particularly- pleasing duties, are worthy of high praise. Exceptions are few and far between. The questions asked about dresses, laces, ‘cloaks, etc, are not invariably met with precisely truthful rejoinders. To cheat Uncle Sam in revenue matters is regarded as a decidedly venial sin by most of his children, native and adopted. This notion is doubtless an unconscious remnant of the free booting ethics of forgotten ancestors. It is slowly yielding to h'gher and better ideas. Even the wealthiest are not exempt from the One _ gentleman, whosenameis synonymouswith almost fabulous wealth, returning from Europe in company with his wife, was compelled to pay SI,BOO in duties on her enormous stock of wearing apparel, which h e coa t end ed was not dutiable, whether it had or had Hot been worn. He appealed to the Secretary of the Treasury, who decided against him. -He then brought- suit within ninety days in tne United States Court. His wife swore that a portion of the whole had been worn in good faith. The duties paid on that portion were refunded, while those on the remainder were retained. Smuggling is carried on in many ways, and will be carried on while human nature continues to be what it is. Foreign retail traders are” adept instructors in the art of evading the payment of duties, as anyone who has been in the lace establishment of Des Marets. and other merchants <>f Brussele can testify. The ingenuity of inspectors is taxed to the utmost to defeat their schemes. Female inspectors are employed to search persons of their own sex who are sent to them by the Deputy Surveyor for that purpose. Of these inspectresses there are nine. In 1866 there were only four. The inspectresses perform their duties, both at Castle Garden and on the docks, in rooms set apart for such searches. Recitals of their experiences are at once amusing and humiliating to believers in the natural goodness of men, German Jews are more addicted to smuggling than people of other nationali ties, but none are altogether free from vice. Mo.listes and dress-makers are naturally the most frequent and flagrant offenders. Extra gold watches; lace, silk, linens, wound around the body or limbs; human hair in toupees, wigs," and switches sewn into skirts; new dregses stitched to old ones; silk and lace made up into several voluminous skirts—are among ordinary discoveries. One unlucky wight, suspected of complicacy in feminine designs, was found to have two sets of point-lace iij the crown of his hat—--11. Wheatley, in Harper's Magazine.