Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-07-11
1NsUITING AMERICAN WOMEN

JILL MEhlCAN ~
Under the present administration Of
high tariff extortion it has come to such
a pass that for fear something may es-
cape the customs officers every Amerl-
can woman who goes abroad must
stand insult and i%ndignity at the hands
of the customs officials of New York
before she can get back to her native
land with her baggage. The customs
officers swarm aboard before the ship
is landed at her wharf in New York.
Women with trunks are compelled to
swear to their contents. 1t might be
considered reasonable enough if the
matter were let go at that; burt it isn't.
Every woman ON board is pre-supposed
by the customs officers to be a periurer,
a liar and a thief, and after she has
sworn to the contents of her trunks,
they are opened and their contents
dumped out tt prove it. Every article
is taken out and shaken. The officials
are compelled to do this under penalty
of dismissal. There are some OF her
belongings which a woman does not
care to have exposed to the public view;
but that doesn't matter, every article
of feminine dress is ruthleSSly thrown
out. held aloft and shaken out in the
presence of a large and gaping crowd
of men. If the searchers permit them
selves to be influenced by the owners
tears or bushes they run chances of
dismissal. Everything has to be shown
up.
But, we forgot, there are exceptions.
While thousands of modest and efine
American women are compelled to go
through this ordeal, there are some
times those who don't have to go
through it. One of the latter, a passen-
ger from Europe, boldly presented her
self to the customs officers who board
ed the vessel she was a passenger on
the other day. She was a woman-well,
probably the less said of her the bet
ter. At any rate, it was found that h
had thousands of dollars worth OF
dutiable jewelry which she had not de-
clared. What followed we let the New
York World tell:
LAS soon as the Treasury agents learned
who this woman was, what a good Repub-
lican protector she had, they closed her
trunks and took them off TO the seizure
room of the Appraisers Stores.
Paper was spread over the glass door
of the seizure-room by the obsequious Of
fetal in charge, and then he and the
woman and her counsel in strict privacy
went over the contents of the trunks.
When this work was finished the woman,
shown to be a smuggler, was not ar
rested.
She was conducted by bowling and
scraping United States officials to a private
elevator. She descended with her retinue
of officials to the ground floor and was
escorted 10 a private exit. 1t was rain
ing. So a man in the uniform of the
United States government ran through the
rain for a block TO where her carriage and
pair were waiting. He told her coachman
TO drive to the private entrance. and then
ran back through the rain to receive any
further commands which this woman
might deign to convey through the Treas
ury agents who were at her disposal"
Honest American citizens, the feel
ings of whose modest and refined wives
and daughters had not been spared by
these same customs officials, when
they heard of this case broke out in
such indignant denunciation OF this in
famous favoritism that their pro-
tests were heard at Washington,
and the Collector at the Port of New
York was hastily called to seensure"
his officials, which he has done 'pri-
vately,' the blame thus being placed
on these underlings who probably did
not know the woman and would not
have dared act on their own volftion
in any event.
It viii strike most American citizens