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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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A CENTURY ago there were something like fifteen hundred articles subject to British import duties; to-day there are only two or three dozen, and most people imagine that the art and craft of smuggling is a thing of the past. It is true that cargoes of French brandy, of tobacco and lace are no longer landed in the lonely coves of Devon and Cornwall, and that armed bodies of coastguards no longer wage pitched battles with bands of dour East countrymen along the muddy creeks of Essex and Suffolk. But if the old-fashioned fighting type of smuggler has passed away, it does not follow that smuggling is dead. Brute force has been succeeded by cunning, and the game still goes merrily on.
In fact, the annual reports of the Commissioners of Customs show a marked increase during recent years. In 1899 the amount of smuggled tobacco seized was 6115 pounds; in 1905, the last year for which statistics are available, it had risen to 12,372 pounds, or more than double; and 2323 persons were fined for the offence of smuggling. The largest seizure during 1905 was effected by the appropriately named H.M.S. Argus when she captured a fleet of seven Dutch coopers inside the three mile limit off the Humber. Coopers are floating grog and tobacco shops which sell their cargo to fishermen, and from these seven vessels were taken no less than two and a quarter tons of tobacco and cigars. By-the-bye, seized tobacco is no longer consigned to the "King's tobacco pipe;" the best of it is sent to the criminal lunatic asylums, and of such as is not fit for human consumption some goes to the Botanical Gardens at Kew and Edinburgh for fumigating purposes, and the rest is sold to manufacturers of sheep-wash.
There are always individuals who will risk the chances of detection and subsequent penalties for the sake of getting a few pounds of tobacco past the Customs. Only the other day a passenger, who had thrice asserted that he had nothing to declare, was searched at Harwich. He was found to have a large quantity of tobacco wrapped round his body next the skin, in the form of a plaster, and he was wearing two pairs of trousers, the inner being stuffed with choice cigarette tobacco. His offence cost him a month in prison. Seamen are most ingenious in their attempts to get tobacco in free of duty, but the Customs House officers are up to most of their tricks. Upon one occasion, when the officials at Poole had vainly searched every place likely and unlikely in a suspected ship, it occurred to one of them to pick up a large loaf of bread which lay uncut and apparently honest upon the forecastle table. He gave it a shake, when the bottom fell out, and so did about two hundred choice cigars. About a dozen more loaves were found to be each stuffed in similar fashion. "Packages containing corpses," or in other words coffins, must always be searched, for there are many cases on record of supposed coffins being filled with contraband. Bibles, even plum-puddings, have been found hollowed out and stuffed with tobacco.
The duty which was placed on sugar four years ago has entailed an enormous amount of extra work upon the Customs of this country. Of course, no one short of a lunatic would attempt to smuggle sugar: it is sugar's substitute, saccharin, which has opened a new field to the ingenious evader of duties. With one exception, a rare kind of ether, saccharin, which is about three hundred times as sweet as sugar, carries the heaviest duty of any object of import, namely one and threepence an ounce. When it is remembered that saccharin is imported either in crystals or powder, and that enough may be carried in a hat or tobacco pouch to cheat the revenue of several shillings, the difficulty which confronts the officials will be appreciated.
Saccharin can also be mixed with other substances, such as chalk, soda, even painters' colours, and readily separated after reaching its destination. The first heavy seizure was at Folkestone. Casks containing in all a ton and a half of aniline dyes were found to be composed of 50 per cent. of saccharin mixed with sulphate of aniline, sulphate of soda, etc. Had it not occurred to a smart examining officer to rub a little of the stuff on his hand and taste it, the revenue would have been the poorer by some £1500.
Another ingenious individual mixed saccharin with sugar, and by paying duty on the sugar evaded suspicion for months. He was caught in the long run, but as by that time he was several thousand pounds to the good, he could well afford the heavy fine inflicted. Perhaps the cleverest trick of all was one which came to light about a year ago. Acting on certain information a preventive inspector of the Inland Revenue visited a house in Stepney and entered a room on the ground floor. On his table was a large galvanized bath, and beside it a pair of scales. There were also a large number of wooden discs in the room, some in crates, some leaning against the table. Two men were busy breaking open the discs one by one and weighing a white powder which they contained. The air was thick with the powder, the taste of which was insufferably sweet. The wooden discs were recognised as table tops, which, although each held about six pounds of saccharin, had passed the Customs without the slightest suspicion being aroused. About two hundredweight of the drug was seized upon this occasion, and the treble value and duty claimed by the Inland Revenue came to no less that £1500. Saccharin has been found in ink, sealing-wax, and perfumery, and also hidden in toys. Toys, indeed, have been extensively used as receptacles for taxable goods. Recently a number of innocent-looking, waxen-faced dolls were found to contain each a small barrel of attar of roses. Every resource of modern science is brought into play to counteract the devices of smugglers. Some years ago it was found that watches were being sent by post into one of our colonies hidden inside bibles. The Röntgen rays brought the swindle to light, and are now constantly used for the detection of postal smuggling.
The tariff of the United States is the heaviest in existence, and the penalties for smuggling the heaviest. Section 2065 of the Revised Statutes runs as follows: "If anyone shall knowingly and wilfully with intent to defraud this United States, smuggle or clandestinely introduce into the United States any goods, etc., subject to duty, without paying or accounting for the duly.... every such person, his, her, or their abettors shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanour and on conviction shall be fined any sum not exceeding 5000 dollars, or imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years." Severe as these penalties are, the prices obtained for smuggled goods are so high that any number of people seem willing to run the risk of discovery and consequent punishment. Of cut diamonds alone the Customs estimate that a million dollars' worth a year are smuggled into the country. One man made no fewer than twelve successful journeys to and fro carrying diamonds inside a hollow walking-stick; upon one occasion that stick was worth £10,000. It may be noted by the superstitious, as a proof of the ill-luck of the number 13, that the smuggler was caught on his thirteenth attempt to evade the Customs. Another smuggler took the trouble to remove the charges from a number of revolver cartridges, fill the space with diamonds, and replace the bullets. The foolish fellow was so tickled with a sense of his own ingenuity that he could not keep silence, and boasted to a fellow passenger of his cleverness. Unluckily for him, a spy of the Customs (the American Customs have a regular Secret Service Department) overheard him, and as soon as he landed he was arrested.
It would require a volume to describe the different devices adopted by smugglers for the concealment of diamonds. Five years ago a consignment of eight thousand dollars' worth passed the Custom House hidden in a sugar candy animal carried by a child. The toy was of course transparent, but so also were the diamonds.. Upon another occasion the famous diamond smuggler, Max Lasar, rolled some large stones in balls of sealing wax, and inserted these in a baby's rattle in place of the usual marbles. These stones, which it is said were worth £ 15,000, were carried through the Customs by the unsuspecting child of a fellow passenger.
One of the smartest tricks on record stands to the credit of a Chicago man, who, having invested in £20,000 worth of jewellery in London, determined to bring it home free of duty. On the way over he hollowed out a small cavity in the floor of his cabin and hid the gems in it. When he went ashore at New York he left them behind in their hiding-place, and, making his way to the steamship office, re-engaged the same cabin for the return voyage to Liverpool. On the day of sailing his wife went aboard with him to say good-bye, and just before the gangway was hauled in she stepped ashore with the jewels in her pocket.
In American, as in English ports, coffins are always looked upon with suspicion by the Customs officials. A year or two ago the New York authorities had information that a quantity of valuable lace was going to be run through in a coffin. The ship arrived, and there were the bereaved relatives in the deepest mourning in charge of a leaden casket. Although the certificates were in perfect order the officer insisted upon having the coffin opened. The relatives violently protested against such an outrage, but this only confirmed the suspicious of the Customs man. The coffin being opened, imagine the official's horror when he saw that it really did contain a body. He was on the point of apologising and ordering the casket to be resealed, when he happened to catch sight of a suspicious eye watching him from behind a mourner's handkerchief. It was enough: he had the body removed, and hidden below it was lace worth several thousand dollars. The corpse proved to be that of a pauper bought for the occasion.
On the Pacific Coast there used a few years ago to be tremendous business in smuggling opium, At that time the duty was no less than twelve dollars a pound and this proved so strong an incentive to smugglers that, while it was estimated that the yearly consumption in the states was about 300,000 pounds, only 40,000 of the amount paid duty. Syndicates backed by capitalists went into the business, and the Secretary of the Treasury calculated that the revenue lost in all over four millions dollars. Most of the stuff came in through Puget Sound. It was contained in logs hollowed out and fastened together again by wooden pegs; a few of these included in a cargo of timber easily escaped detection.
Eventually, purely in self-defence, the duly on opium was lowered to six dollars a pound. This put an end to the operations of the large gangs, and at present the states actually reap larger sums in duties at this reduced rate than they did when the duty was at the higher figure.
American revenue officers have more trouble with women than with men, and especially (so a New York Customs official told me) with women of the upper classes. Not long ago a girl belonging to an old Knickerbocker family was caught landing with a Russian sable muff on one leg and a costly sable boa on the other. Another lady, the wife of a wealthy Philadelphia merchant, had some hundreds of ostrich feathers sewn inside her petticoat; and as for lace, it is safe to say that one in three of the fair Americans who have been touring in Europe have large or small quantities of this dutiable commodity hidden about them when they land.
It is said that honesty is the best policy. Perhaps it was this proverb which a certain American engine-driver had in mind when puzzled as to how to smuggle a cooking-stove into Mexico. The man, who was employed upon a line running from Texas into Mexico, had married a Mexican girl and made his home in that country, and the stove was needed to complete the establishment; now the Mexican duty on hardware of that kind is high, and as a cooking-stove is not the sort of thing you can carry in your portmanteau, the man was at his wits' ends how to get it across the border. At last, however, a brilliant scheme occurred to him, and on his next journey he lashed the thing to the pilot of his engine. When he stopped at the Customs Office the Mexican officials stared at the stove in amazement, but concluding it was some new Yankee device in connection with the engine, and afraid to betray their ignorance by asking questions, they let it go, and the driver, suppressing his mirth with the utmost difficulty, proceeded in triumph to his destination.
This incident brings to mind an equally bold trick played on a Custom House officer on the Russo-German frontier. An innocent-looking peasant called on the official after dark, and with an air of great mystery informed him of a plot for getting a large number of pigs across the frontier. The method he said, would be to drive across at an unfrequented spot at intervals of half an hour three, six, twelve, and finally two hundred pigs. The smugglers argued that if the first three lots could be sent across unnoticed, there would be no trouble with the main body. The officer thanked the man, and next day was in hiding at the appointed place. Sure enough, here came the pigs, first three, then six, then twelve. All were allowed to pass, and preparations were made to receive the two hundred; but half an hour went by and no more pigs came. The deluded official waited all day, but there were no more pigs; and meantime the twenty-one which had been admitted free had long been lodged in safety.
Italy imposes heavy duties on tobacco, sugar, and salt, and consequently smuggling along the Swiss frontier has of late largely increased. So much so indeed that a few years ago the Italian Government fenced off a large part of the frontier with wire netting, of which the gates are fitted with alarm bells. Customs House officers armed with rifles form a regular cordon along the fence. As it has thus become almost impossible for men to carry on smuggling, they have trained dogs to do the work. The animal is first taken to a village on the Italian frontier and there petted and well fed. After a few weeks it is brought across the frontier into a Swiss village where it is shut up, half-starved, and beaten by a man in the uniform of a Customs official. After a few days of this treatment a parcel of tobacco is fastened to the dog's collar and it is set free. Naturally it makes straight for its Italian home; naturally also it avoids the hated uniform of the Customs officer. Presently, it sneaks through a gate, the bell rings, and the nearest officer fires. But if he misses he cannot chase the dog, for goods that have once passed the frontier are considered as having paid duty. The extent to which this form of smuggling has developed may be gathered from the fact that in one recent period of three months no fewer than 270 dogs were shot, dumb martyrs to the cupidity of their owners.
Perfectly innocent persons are sometimes deluded into acting as the agents of the cunning smuggler. Some little time ago a pretty Parisian actress was appearing at a theatre in Geneva. On the last night of the play a well-dressed man sent in his card and asked permission to personally thank the lady for the pleasure her performance had given him. Next morning he appeared at the station to see her off, and presenting her with a magnificent bouquet told her that he had telegraphed to a brother in Paris who had influence with the Press, and who would meet her at her destination. The little actress thought it was all too good to be true, but sure enough, when she arrived in Paris, there was the brother, who had brought his carriage to take her to her home. He told her that he was devoted to his brother in Switzerland and would do anything to please him. He spoke so pathetically of his Swiss home and of the bouquet the girl was carrying which, said he, was picked from the garden of the old homestead, that the actress promptly begged him to accept the flowers. This he did most gracefully; and they were well worth accepting for, as the lady accidentally discovered later on, the bouquet contained more than a thousand pounds' worth of watch-springs.
The system of local Customs duties levied upon goods entering any city, town, or village in France, and known as the Octroi, is the cause of an immense amount of internal smuggling in that country. At the headquarters of the Parisian Octroi, opposite the Hôtel de Ville, is a most interesting smugglers' museum. Here may be seen horse-collars hollow and fitted to hold a gallon or more of spirits, mason's hods similarly fitted, a block of wood hollowed out for the reception of cigars, and, perhaps, most cunning of all, a set of automobile tyres which were full, not of air, but of brandy. The Octroi officials have many enough experiences. One warm evening in summer three countrymen, all apparently rather worse for wine, presented themselves before the Menilmontant barriers. Two were singing, but the third, who was in the middle, was so far gone in liquor that the others seemed to have all they could do to keep him on his feet, each holding an arm locked in his. The officers began to make fun of the tipsy man, and presently one of them in a joke gave him a smack on the back. There was a dull thud, and with a curious gurgle the smitten man collapsed, while his companions promptly took to their heels. When the astonished Octroi people lifted the abandoned man they found him to be an india-rubber manikin filled with pure alcohol.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.