The evening herald. [volume] (Shenandoah, Pa.) 1891-1966, 1895-12-23
A VAIN BETRAYAL.
HOW THE tEW YORK CUSTOM HOUSE
INSPECTORS MADE $4,000.

How an OId Germans Effort to smugsIe
In Lot of Diamonds Was Frustrated.
Conditions which the son-in-law Inform
er Had Not the Nerve TO Face
Years ago, " said an old secret service
man, " was in business i'm New York
Men at my trade as a detective hear all
sorts of stnrios some of them long after
the knowledge will do any good Never
thec.s now and then these yarns form
curious hits of history Not long ago
gentleman from the inside was telling mp
a bit of the unwrttcn history of the New
York custom house. What he related took
place over 20 years ago-in fact, not long
after the war. He was explaining how
money was made inside the customs lines
" A friend Of mine, said that gentle
man, was ono of the inspectors in the
New York Office His business was to go
aboard boats, ransaok the trunks of pas
sengers and overhaul the effects of inmi.
grants. In other words, he was to look
ont for smuFglers. This was in 1863.
One day his chief came TO him and
Faid. "You meet such and such a ship
when she comes in. She's at the Narrows
now. Take with you one of the women Of
our Office, because you will have to search
a German girl who is aboard the boat.
This girl will be with her father, whose
name is Schmidt, and who comes from
Bremen. He has nothing on him or about
him that is wrong, but the girl has
whole handful of diamonds done up in her
back hair. You have the inspCctress who
is with you to search the girl and have her
finally find the diamonds in her chignon.
Don't bungle the job nor go straight to
the diamonds as if you knew where they
We're. l want the discovery to come along
in a regular way and nothing done to in.
dicate that we have had any pointer as tc
the folks and their diamonds.
"'There was no time continued my
friend, to ask any questions as to how my
chief knew of the whereabouts of this
plant of diamonds. l took the woman in
spector as he directed me, and we went
aboard the boat and quickly found our
passengers from Bremen. This Schmidt
had been further described to me by my
chief as having only one eye, so he was
easy to pick ont. 1 searched the old man
in careful way, and the woman with me
took the girl into a staterOom, and after
foOling away ten minutes in pretended
search finally discovered the diamonds in
her waterfall, as the peculiar coiffure of
that day was termed.
OF course we took possession Of the
diamonds and put the old German and his
daughter under arrest, II was sore blow,
and they walled and wept and beat their
bosoms nightly.
"' AS we always did at that time, we
oontented ourselves with cOnfiscating the
diamonds. OF course l made a bluff. l
told the old man and his daughter they
were under arrest but that l would let
them 90 for the night. The next day they
must return at 10 O'Clock to the customs
office, when we would send them to tho
penitentiary for anywhere from 10 to 90
years.
This last, I say was only bluff,
however, and the people never came back,
as we had every reason to suppose would
be the case. We had no time to try Grim
inals and usually contented ourselves with
/ confscating the goods which they at
| tempted to smuggle, and as these were
generally very valuable it was punishment
enough.
When I found my chief l told him l
had the diamonds all safe enough and
had given the old German and his daugh-
ter such a scare that none of us need ex-
pect to see either of them again Then 1
asked him how he knew so accurately
about the diamonds.
&c My chief told me that his informa-
tion came from the son-in-law Of the old
man 1t seems that the old German had
two daughters The elder one was mar
ried and already in this country, living in
New York city. The younger girl when
she and her father got ready to come over
wrote the other how they had turned all
of their property into diamonds, which
could be bought at low figure in Europe
and ON account of the tariff sold for double
the money hore, and how she proposed to
conceal them in her hair in order to snug
gle them ashore
Naturally the elder sister told her
husband, and it was he who informed my
chief. What was his ohiectg Why. the
Internal rascal expected to get 45 per cent
of tho proceeds of the conhscated property
when sold, being the amount which, in
that dav. went to the informer.
g Il couldn't for the life Of me see where
my chief and myself and the other bows in
the custom house were going to get any