Birmingham state herald., 1895-12-15
A VAIN BETRAYAL.
HOW THE NEW YORK CUSTOM HOUSE
 INSPECTORS MADE $4,ooo.

How an Old German's Effort to Smugglo
 In a Lot of Diamonds Was Frustrated.
 Conditions Which the son-in- law Inform
 CT Had Not the Nerve to Face.
 "Years ago" said an old secret service man, II was in business in New York Men at my trade as @ detective hear all sorts of stories some of them long after the knowledge will do any good. Never theless now and then these yarns form curious bits of history. Not long ago gentleman from the inside was telling me a bit of the unwritten history of the New York custom house. What he related took place over 20 years ago-in fact, not long after tho war. He was explaining how money was made inside the customs lines.
 "' A friend of mine, said that gentle man, was one of the inspectors in the New York offlco His business was to go aboard boats, ransack the trunks of pas sengers and overhaul the effects of immi- grants. In other words, he was to look out for smugglers. This was in 1869.
 "'Ono day his chief came to him and said: "You meet such and such ship when sine comes in. She's at the Narrows now Take with you one of the women of J 0 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 tho inspectress 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 whore they were. I want the discovery to come along in regular way and nothing done to in dicate that we have had any pointer as to 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. 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 mo by my chief as having only one eye, so he was easy to pick out. I searched the old man in careful way, and the woman with mo took the girl into stateroom, and after fooling away ten minutes in pretended search finally discovered the diamonds in her waterfall, as the peculiar ooiffure of
 
 that day was termed.
 "'Of course we took possession of the diamonds and put the old German and his daughter under arrest. It was sore blow, and they walled and wept and beat their bosoms nightly.
 "'As we always did at that time, we contented ourselves with confiscating the diamonds. Of course made q bluff. told the old man and his daughter they were under arrest but that 1 would let them go for the night. The next day they must return at 10 o'clock to the customs office when we would send them to the penitentiary for anywhere from 10 to 20 years.
 "'This last say, was only a 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 crim- inals and usually contented ourselves with conflscating the goods which they at tempted to smuggle, and as these werc generally very valuable it was punishment enough.
 "'When found my chief, told him had the diamonds all safe enough and had given tho old German and his daugh- ter such scare that none of us neod ex- pect to sec either of them again. Then 1 asked him how he knew so accurately about the diamonds.
 "'My chief told me that his informa- tion came from the son-in law of the old man. It seems that tho 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 a low figure in Europe, and on account of the tariff sold for double the money here, and how she proposed to conceal them in her hair in order to snug gle them ashore.
 l" Naturally the elder sister told her husband, and it was he who informed my chief. What was his objectP Why, tho internal rascal expected to get 45 per cent of tho proceeds of the conflscated property when sold, being the amount which, in that day, went to the informer.
 !" I couldn't for tho life of me see where my chief and myself and tho other boys in the custom house were going to get any part of the proceeds of these diamonds. They were of course reported to the office as confscated, and their sale would duly take place, but with the reptile son-in-law getting 45 per cent as informer and Uncle Sam the ot he. o5 per cent as confiscator, I couldn't sec "no'e we'd get in. But my chief, who >''>- ~'~v intelligent man, bade me be of eu, a ,n.er. He had plan which he was conhuoI4l would work.
 ]" At one of the sales which the custom house periodically holds tho old Germans diamonds wero duly hawked of. We had not seen either him or his daughter since l turned them loose on the wharf, although