The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1905-07-20
QUEER SMUGGLING TRICKS.
METHODS or OLD TIME RUN
NERS OF REVENUE WERE
VARIED.

The Art Has Greatly Decayed In Re-
cent Years-Baffled in a Search
The Famous Hiding Place at Cover
AN Italians Clever Ruse.
Smuggling effectively is one Of
those fine arts that has decayed, at
least in England, where, as we have
duties on little else than tobacco, tea
and spirits, and where we have a sea
board closely watched, it cannot be
carried out to any extent success
fully.
In Cover, at Llangenneth, the run
ners of struggled goods had con-
trived a most ingenious cache" A
little stream falls in cascades from
the mountain above. They diverted
the stream, formed a cellar under the
spot where the water splashes down,
well covered with broad states above,
on which they cast torrent rubble,
and In this hid their kegs. But a
storm brought the stream down with
such violence that one night it tore
away the roof and revealed the con-
cealed rum goods. In many farm
house near the coast throughout Eng
land the chimneys were constructed
so as to have a chamber in the depth
of the wall, entered through hole
some little way up the chimney; and
many a so-called priests chamber in
an ancient mansion, though it MAY
have served as hiding place for a
Roman chaplain, most certainly
served more frequently as a cellar
in which to stow away contraband
spirits. For the gentry were, in a
large number of cases, quite willing
to conniye at the proceedings of the
''free traders"
A certain baronet in South Devon,
who died not so long ago, was
shrewdly suspected of being hand-in-
glove with these gentry At last the
officers were constrained to pay him
a domiciliary visit. by all means"
said the baronet, search high and
low; here are the keys Of my cellars,
and here also of the attics." The
functionaries made a good search,
and discovered nothing. They had
omitted to examine the old yellow
bodied family coach, which all the
while was crammed with kegs.
But if the art is in decline to death
in England, this is by no means the
case on the Continent In France
there are not merely the frontier
ports watched, but each town has its
"octroi," and food and liquor enter
ing have to pay toll, which takes
the place of our rates. There is,
accordingly, an incessant effort made,
not at the frontier only, but in every
town, to outwit those who watch to
impose a duty or a tax.
There was local Mrs. farley who
went about with her waxworl1s in the
frontier towns of Belgium and
France; and every one of her figures
was receptacle for spirits or Mech
lin or Valenciennes lace; and
roaring trade was done by this
means, and might have continued had
not the manageress of the show
quarrelled with one of the underlings
about some small advance in wage.
NO such a being exists as a small
enemy" said Talleyrand; and so this
fellow proved. He betrayed the
whole thing. Next time that the
waxworks passed the frontier the fig
ures were examined. The Sultan of
Morocco, though strictly forbidden by
the Koran TO take fermented liquor.
was full of cognac; Rousseau with
the ''contrat social" in his hand, was,
packed with lace; Fenelon, Arch
bishop of Cambria, had his bosom
and his mitre charged with English
silks; Marat, bleeding in his bath,
was full of English jams, even sugar,
and Charlotte Corday was nothing
other than a great case of comfts.
On the Swiss and French frontier
an Italian piled his trade He had a
bear, and monkey that sat on the
back of Bruin. Sometimes he was
in France, sometimes in Switzerland.
But actually the beast he Travelled
with was an ass. Tin receptacles had
been formed adapted to his sides and
back, and these were filed with
brandy, and the whole was covered
over with the skin of huge bear.