The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-05-22
ACTIVE SMUGGLERS.
THEY KEEP THE SPECIAL TREASURY
AGENTS VERY BUSY.

Part Of the Customs Department OF
tho Governments of Which But Little
| is Known-Men Whose Sharp Eyes
| Save Uncle Sam Thousands Of Dollars.
| In the extreme northwest corner OF the
| basement floor of the New York custom
| house is the headquarters of the United
States special treasury agent for this dis
| trict. 1t is an transformations suit OF of
| fees. plainly furnished, the easements
painted virgin white. The casual visitor
who strolls in is amazed chiefly at one
thing, that is at the order and neatness
! which prevails.
He sees number of fat top desks at
| which sit clerical looking men figuring
and writing. An air of sleepy quierude
pervades the place, as II it were some
counting room where the most ordinary
transactions in hides or wheat were the
subject of consideration. Yet the quiet
Office is the fountain head Of what may be
termed the United States treasury detect
i've work for this district.
The special treasury agent is stationed
here. A special treasury agents mission
is an anomaly and a paradox. He is at
once a watch dog and in certain lines an
auditor. He is a prevention and cure.
He watches alike the just and the unjust,
the righteous and the SHINING. the customs
officer and the smuggler.
The thirty local agents report directly to
the department at Washington, with a
lesser consumption of red tape and more
frequent use of the telegraph and the iron
bound packet than almost any other depart
ment in our great governmental system
unless it be that of the secret service.
PERFECT ESPIONAGE
The detective work of the inspectors and
agents is always interesting. The treasury
agents throughout the country work sys-
tematically and into each others hands,
and By means of this wonderful unity in
the department the most perfect system of
espionage and care has been built up. The
special treasury agents department saves
to the United States annually many hun
dreds of thousands of dollars over and
above expenses of its maintenance. Prob
ably no bureau under any of the cabinet
departments has been proved to be more
thoroughly useful and paying institution.
The treasury agent for the local district
has always had his hands full. The local
Office has had in charge such matters as
of the body of the murdered Dane in bar
rel of plaster on board the steamship
Thingvalla, from Copenhagen, which
aroused SO much interest; the pushing of
cases in the discovery of criminals con-
nected with the illegal Importation of
opium, both by way of water and over the
Canadian line; accumulative discoveries
connected with the wholesale smuggling
of cigars, and the seizures and strict sys-
tenn of espionage which have decreased the
percentage of this illicit trade, and many
other open-and-above-b board varieties of
fraudulent dealings with the government.
The most romantic and interesting por-
ton of the work of the inspectors is the
secret or detective part of it, and the in
spectors and agents who visit the steam
ship docks or stroll idly about the custom
house or appraiser stores in citizens dress
are all men of determination, keenness and
energy. The surveyor of the port, with his
force of 80 inspectors, twelve inspectresses
and 1l9 night inspectors, is compelled to
acknowledge that without the aid of the
special treasury agent and his efficient
corps of assistants the government would
be defrauded of hundreds of thousands of
dollars yearly.
Smuggling as carried on today varies
little in its methods or subterfuges from
that of ten, twenty or fifty years ago. The
ingenuity of man Is constantly supplying
new means for evading the collection of
lawful duties, but these newly invented
methods follow along old lines to large
e1tent, and the facilities for capturing a
smuggler who operated in that unknown
epoch in history commonly called before
the war" are much the same as those in
vogue at the present day.
GETTING TIPS
No one can appreciate the workings of
the department who does not know that it
is ON intimate terms of correspondence
with consuls at foreign cities, the ministers
at foreign capitals, the department of state
at Washington, the department of the
navy, the secret service and all the branches
of the customs department. When this is
considered it is not strange that the in
spectors of the special treasury agents, or
at least the agents themselves are pretty
well informed of all that is going on in the
of importations and know just
where and how to look for violations of
the law.
They tell many curious stories of meth
DDS in vogue, and many events which seem
to be coincidental with certain facts, but
which are in truth an outgrowth of those
facts One of the special agents under
stands that there IS a quantity of snug
gled cigars on board Cuban brig. Under
cover of darkness he is rowed out, and
calls roughly to the sailors on board the
ship that ''he has come for the cigars"
Quietly and deity box containing sew
eral hundred of the Struggled articles is
passed down over the ships side, and away
rows the inspector, seeming to disappear
like a mist of the sea-
Probably the captain Of the brig has
never, to this day, fathomed the disappear
ance of those cigars. There were cigars,
and they were handed to living hands, and
a notice of their receipt was given by voices
which were not of the spirit, and yet with
In very few minutes there were no cigars,
and to the last, unless the seizure room
gives up many of the secrets which it
holds padlocked in its depths, the snug
glers will never be able TO fathom such oc-
currences as thesa-Eew York World
A Monster Grapevine.
The largest grapeviDein the world is that !
growing at Oys, Portugal, which has been |
bearing since 1902. Its maximum yield |
was in 1864, in which year it produced I