The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-02-20
MODERN SMUGGLING.
New English Duties Produce New
Tricks to Evade Them.

The unexpected discharge of volley
of cigars from a bale of hay which was
being landed at Hull IS a reminder that
smuggling is stiI1 far from being a lost
art. We had rather fiattered ourselves
that our fixed tariff was so restricted
and so simple that attempted contra
band was really not worth the candle,
more especially in view of the alert
ness OF the modern custom house off,
Ger. The statistics, however, tell an
other story. OF late Parliament has seen
fit to add to the number of dutiable
articles, and the result has been an i'm
mediate and considerable increase In
smuggling. In the financial year ended
March 81, 1902, there were 4,701 seizures
of struggled goods, or SAB more than IN
the previous year, and nearly 1000
more than in 1900. If the seizures
form a relatively fixed percentage of
the total number of successful and I'M
successful attempts to defraud the rev
enue, then business in this particular
line is distinctly looking up again.
Something, of course, may be attrtbu-
table to the fact that, In view of the
new duties imposed by the Finance act
of 1901, an addition of no fewer than
pa officers has been made to the GUS
toms staff. The more detectives, doubt
less, the more thieves known to the
police.
In a few meagre phrases in which
the Commissioners of Customs dismiss
this, to them, nauseous subject in their
saccharin and substances of a like
nature or use are partly at the bot
tom of the increased mischief. No
doubt there have been cases in which
men have been caught walking off d
ship with saccharin concealed about
their persons. One man, recently con-
Victed, found a convenient hiding place
for saccharin in his trousers, which
suggests a weak imagination compared
with that of the individual, captured
at Dover last year who was in the
habit of crossing the Channel with to-
bacco and snuff so disposed as to make
him appear to be a hunchback. But
SaCcharin as a matter of fact has a
very small share in the smuggling of
to-day. 1t is tobacco, cigars and
spirits which, as of old, are the favorite
articles. Out of the 4701 seizures in
the last financial year as many as 1891
concerned these particular goods. So
the Hull case, although interesting, is
not surprising, except in the sense that
it shows that there is nothing new
under the sun in this matter of con-
ira band lodges. Hull, by the way, has
some reputation for this sort of thing.
II the year 1855 the Crown recovered
against a Leeds tobacconist the sum
of e1,9S6 as penalties for smuggling.
The tobacco in question was landed at
Hull in collins and in hollow pieces of
timber. Doubtless for a while the Gus
toms officers prodded all collins and
sounded all timber just as they will
now stick a pitchfork into every bale
of hay. But eventually the suspect ar
ticle becomes the safest.
Straightforward smuggling of the
old fashioned type-the landing of
dutiable goods under the very nose of
the preventive man-is rare, but is still
not unknown. Two or three years ago
a Deal galley with a lug sail was
beached at Eastbourne by three gall
liant looking seamen. When the coast
guard came down to inquire if they
had any dutiable articles on board,
they merely gave an extra hitch to
their pants and uttered an Indifferent
negative. There was nothing sus-
piciouslooking about the craft, and
nothing odd in a Deal galley being so
far from home. But the coastguards-
man was mot quite happy. He took
the liberty of raking about the ballast
in the bottom of the boat, and there
he found that 140 pounds of tobacco
forty boxes of cigars, and a couple of
bottles of eau de cologne were required
" MAKE CIle craft SedWOrIny. Inc
matter worked out extensively at the
police court, while the owner of the
boat, whose property, it appeared, had
been borrowed saw it no more, for
the customs authorities confisCated the
galley. TO most people the notion will
occur that, If the smuggler can still
afford to run the risk of capture by
Bleaching his boat in broad daylight,
there must be an average of cases in
which the enterprise comes off"
Doubtless seaside morals, which were
| once very lax in respect of smuggled
! goods, have stiffened a good deal of
| recent years. Yet Adam Smith knew
| something of human nature when he
wrote: ITO pretend to have any scru-
| pie about buying smuggled goods
| would in most countries be regarded
| as one of those pedantic pieces of
| hypocrisy which serve only to expose
| the person who affects to practice them
to the suspicion of being d greater
| knaVe than his neighbors."
| When munitions of war can be i'm
! ported as pianos under the eye of a
| British agent, it is pretty clear that
| dutiable articles, such as cigars and
| brandy, still have a chance, especially
| i'll small quantities, of successfully
| eluding the vigilance of the customs
officers. These latter, like nature, es-
! pecially abhor a vacuum, for it is the
| unsupported vacuum which is usually
| the vehicle of the contra bandist, whose
| ingenuity shows little sign of slacken-
| ing. We can only guess at it by the
! light of cases in which there comes