The tricks practised by smugglers other than those daring and resourceful fellows who risked life, limb, and liberty in conflict with the elements and the preventive service, may form, in the narration, an amusing chapter. Smugglers of this kind may be divided, roughly, into three classes. Firstly, we have the ingeniously evasive trade importer in bulk, who resorts to false declarations and deceptive packing and labelling, for the purpose of entering his merchandise duty-free. Secondly, we have the sailors, the firemen of ocean-going steamers, and other persons of like classes, who smuggle tobacco and spirits, not necessarily to a commercial end, in considerable quantities; and thirdly, there are those enterprising holiday-makers and travellers for pleasure who cannot resist the sport.
We read in The Times of 1816 that, among the many expedients at that time practised for smuggling goods into France, the following scheme of introducing merchandise into Dieppe had some dexterity. Large stone bottles were procured, and, the bottoms being knocked off, they were then filled with cotton stockings and thread lace. A false bottom was fixed, and, to avoid suspicion, the mouth of each bottle was left open. Any inquiries were met with the statement that the bottles were going to the spirit merchant, to be refilled.
This evasion was successfully carried on until a young man from Brighton ventured on too heavy a speculation. He filled his bottle with ten dozen stockings, which so weighted it that the bottom came off, disclosing the contents.
Ingenuity worthy of a better cause is the characteristic of modern types of smugglers. A constant battle of wits between them and the custom-house officers is in progress at all ports of entry; and the fortunes of either side may be followed with much interest.
One of the most ingenious of such tricks was that of the trader who was importing French kid-gloves. He caused them to be despatched in two cases; one, containing only right-hand gloves, to Folkestone, the other, left-hand only, to London. Being at the time dutiable articles, and the consignee refusing to pay the duty, the two cases were confiscated and their contents in due course sold at auction. No one has a use for odd gloves, and these oddments accordingly in each case realised the merest trifle; but the purchaser—who was of course the consignee himself—netted a very considerable profit over the transaction. The abolition of duty on such articles has, however, rendered a modern repetition of the trick unnecessary. Nor is it any longer likely that foreign watches find their way to these shores in the old time-honoured style—i.e. hung in leather bags round the persons of unassuming travellers.
Such an one, smuggling an unusual number across from Holland, calculated upon the average passage of twenty-four hours, and reckoned he could, for once in a way, endure that spell of waiting and walking about deck without lying down. He could not, as a matter of fact, on account of the watches, afford to lie down. To his dismay, the vessel, midway of the passage, encountered a dense fog, and had occasionally to stop or slow down; and, in the end, it was a forty-eight hours’ passage. The unfortunate smuggler could not endure so much, and was obliged to disclose his treasure. So the Revenue scored heavily on that occasion.
Tobacco is still largely smuggled, and is, in fact, the foremost article so treated to-day; the very heavy duty, not less than five times its value, forming a great, and readily understood, temptation. Perhaps the most notable attempt in modern times to smuggle tobacco in bulk was that discovered in 1881.
The custom-house staff in London had for some time before that date become familiar with warning letters sent anonymously, hinting that great quantities of tobacco were continually being conveyed into England from Rotterdam without paying duty, but for a while little notice was taken of these communications; until at length they grew so definite that the officials had no choice but to inquire. Detective officers were accordingly despatched to Rotterdam, to watch the proceedings there, and duly observed the packing of two large marine boilers with tobacco, by hydraulic pressure. They were then shipped aboard a steamer and taken to London, whence they were placed upon the railway at King’s Cross, for delivery in the north. A great deal of secret manoeuvring by the custom-house officials and the police resulted in both boilers being seized in London and those responsible for them being secured. It was then discovered that they were only dummy boilers, made expressly for smuggling traffic; and it was further thought that this was by no means the first journey they had made. The parties to this transaction were fined close upon five thousand pounds, and the consignment was confiscated.
To conceal tobacco in hollow loaves of bread, especially made and baked for this purpose, was a common practice, and one not altogether unknown nowadays; while the coal-bunkers, the engine-rooms, and the hundred and one odd corners among the iron plates and girders of modern steamships afford hiding-places not seldom resorted to. The customs officers, who board every vessel entering port, of course discover many of these caches, but it is not to be supposed that more than a percentage of them are found.