Arizona republican., 1910-09-20
INGENIOUS TRICKS
 OF SMUGGlERs
Ingenuity Used to Avoid Paying Duty
 on Imports at New York.

Tricks in all trades. but the trick 1 jest of all trades is that of smuggling
 say the customs men. A correspond 1 ent of the Sun recently described | some of the ingenious contrivances | confiscated by the French customs.
 American customs officers have seen | all those and a whole lot more. Among them are tobacco ropes on | sailing craft, demijohns with oil in
 side but brandy in compartments just | surrounding it; jewels, liquors, teas and laces stuffed in copies of Mrs. Jarley's Wax Works; pearls in bi- | cycle tires, diamonds in pieces of soap, in the sawdust stuffing of a | child's doll, between a lady's toes, and many times when suspicion has been strong customs officers have, as ! employers do at the Kimberly mines detained persons in hospitals till it has been proved that they. have not swallowed gems.
 Special information from spies abroad last year caused the bestowal of particular attention upon an in coming Austrian, says a writer in A@' VI SppNg Ilt NOu'u nave IuDltS. A dozen red stones hidden in his cravat gave the inspectors visions of high 'mOiety." On test it was found that they were not real rubies. Sadly the inspectors let him go
 E%cted news came by cable. Searching him once more at his hotel signs were seen that he had lately worn a porous plaster An intricate pattern of pink dents indicated where things with sharp corners recently had been snugly concealed between the plaster and the smuggler Jewellers have pretended to be breeders of fancy fowl and have de- clared the fowls as tools of trade, fowls were made to yield their con tents they were found to be full of diamonds instead of corn.
 Huge profits are made through the ignorance of the inspectors in regard to paintings. Bogus Corots are sent over by a dealer just to have them passed and assessed as genuine. The customs officers went merely by the signature "Corot," which helped the dealer far beyond the duty levied. Reversing the process-give a good work an unknown signature-and the dealer would still win
 For instance a painting is consign- ed to an American dealer. It is by an artist who comments great price. over the real signature is placed an indistinguishable label with another and less valuable name. over that
 
 Comes a mysterious letter to New York Customs: Rub off the sigma ture on these and you will find the painters name" The top signature is rubbed off; the canvases are en- tered at the ruling rate for the name disclosed Underneath that and not discovered at all is the name that gives the picture d value a hundred fold higher.
 Mails too have to be closely watch ed. The New York postoffce yearly collects about S250,OOO in duty as sessed. Books conceal much contra band. One postal examiner from ex perience determined that he would specialize on two titles: Every Book of Common Prayer and every I'm Ol 1UIlSl ne turned the leaves of Edward VI al ways stood for him as the patron of glove smugglers, and Thomas a Kempis became to him the patron of lace smugglers.
 But nowadays" an inspector de- clared, we who serve at the port of New York don't see the great snug gling. That goes on along the Cana dian border Think of that long, long line from the St. CroiX river to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and no patrol three thousand miles and customs stations a days journey apart.
 "Canada's border indeed is the last remaining smugglefs' paradise. Gus toms agents could not hope to cover it. only per cent of all duties are collected there.
 A man may be out shooting prairie | chickens. yet have in his game bag | several pounds of opium which he | can leave on the American side of | the line at an inn where he stops | for a drink. Many inns straddle the ] line. If an inspector appears, he has | simply to hand the contraband to | a confederate over the threshold of | the next room, and instantly it is not | contraband. for the holder of it is in Canada. owing to that facility, | the customs service is urging an un- derstanding with Canada that the | line, for customs purposes, shall be fifty feet wide.
 Have you perhaps heard of the i woman who went back and forth be- tween Buffalo and Montreal so ire quently that she was thought to be subject to some mania for motion? |