The Arizona sentinel. [volume] (Arizona City [Yuma], Yuma County, A.T. [Ariz.]) 1872-1911, 1889-10-26
AN ANXIOUS MOMENT.
Scenes on Board Most America
Bound Ships.
Foolish Fears and Amusing Conduct OF
Passengers Who Possess Dutiable
GOods-The UncOncerned Ind-
ViduaI and What Damc
RumOr Said.

1t is safe to say that seven persons
in ten who cross the ocean as cabin
passengers add to their apprehensions
= new terror of the voyage in the form
of the customs officer they are to meet
at the end of it. Nine in ten have
spent more than they meant to. and
have no desire to add to the expendi-
ture by paying duty on their pur-
chases. On the homeward voyage all
Americans are practical free-traders
The story of one midsummer voyage is
like the story of all. The good ship
-, of the Guion Line, made a recent
"trip with a typical cabin-load. The
women began to glisten with newly
purchased diamonds before the jour-
ney was half finished, '.just to see if
they would attract much attention, :"
they explained. The men appeared at
odd intervals in stiff new garments, in
order to say that they had worn them.
Ha.f the talk was about the dreaded
csostoms inspectors Almost every one
who had undergone any experience
with these sentries of the coast re-
ported them more than half human.
and disinclined to notice ordinary
-l1,rr-oroe4a- -ptarelases.- what these
veterans said had little weight beside
the startling narratives of those who
merely repeated anecdotes of what
had happened to persons they
had heard of. Some of these were
tales of hapless passengers who had
been obliged to retire and be searched,
or to spend days and hundreds of dol
lars in satisfying the greed of our
protective policy. There was one
story of great enlpreSSenlent about a
gentleman who, on being asked to pay
duty on two silver candlesticks, threw
them into the river rather than do so.
After seven days of such recitals a great
number of the cabin passengers were
rendered nervous to a degree that
made life wretched for those who had
to listen to the borrowed trouble that
weighted all their talk. Shakespeare's
reference to that human possession
which makes towards of us all" was
never better understood or justified
than in that cabin company.
One black-haired woman, of girlish
frame and placid mien. exhibited no
interest in the otherwise all-absorbing
topic. Those who had gone over on
the same ship with her declared that
she had appeared equally Indifferent
to the ceaseless rocking of the vessel
as it rode out one gaze after another
all the way across. 1t seemed that
nothing moved or affected her. Early
every morning she came up to her
deck chair with an unfinished quilt,
and the basket of patches, needles
and silk, with which she was complet-
ing the pretty spread. All day
long she sewed away, stop
ping only for her meals or her
cup of broth at eleven o'clock each
forenoon. Old Judge Dash, of Boston,
whose wife had purchased two pairs
of lace curtains in Brussels, felt per-
sonally outraged by the quilt-maker's
placidity. He and his wife thought of
nothing except the customs inspector
who was to examine their trunks
Every day both resolved upon new
mode of smug-that is to say, of get
ting the curtains through to Boston
without paying duty upon them. 1t was
usually the Judges wike who hit upon
each new plan, and the Judge COM
planned that she always woke him up
with these new conceptions at five
o'clock in the morning, after having
kept him up till one o'clock the pre-
vious night with impracticable plans
Between loss of sleep and q troubled
conscience the Judge was visibly vast
ing away, but his wife as plainly i'm
proved as each day sped along. In
Liverpool she put the curtains under
paper in the bottom of her trunk. She
took them out aboard ship, and folded
each half curtain in with the skirt of
one dress after another. Then she de-
cided to rip the lining out of his new
English ulster, and sew the curtains
between the lining and the cloth. She
actually went so far as to rep the lin
ing loose, despite his excited assertion
that he was not at all certain of
getting the ulster in duty free, since
it was midsummer, and there was no
meteorological excuse for his having
an ulster at all. She was only dis
suaded by finding that the curtains
were too thick to go in the coat with
out a new and larger lining. accom-