We will learn more about smuggling. False bottoms and secret pockets in trunks are an old device for hiding things; but the man who first secreted diamonds in his boot heel originated something. Secreting about the person is the ruse oftenest used, and, women’s costumes affording the best resources for this purpose, women are the most frequent smugglers.
Some of them—reputable women, too—take quite superfluous pains and make themselves look needlessly ridiculous by loading their persons with apparel that no one would question if in their trunks, and no one does on their persons, except to smile at the self-exposure. On a hot July day I saw elegant appearing ladies in the barge office, sweating under enormous fur cloaks that made them look like Arctic explorers. This foible is neatly satirized in “Nothing to Wear,” in which is described the enormously stout appearance of Miss Flora McFlimsy upon landing.
One day the inspector witnessed a woman waddling down the gang plank with the body of a two hundred pounder and the face and head of a skinny, ninety-five pounder. Of course she was invited to the examination room by the female inspector, where the peripatetic ladies’ furnishing store was opened up and duty demanded on the whole outfit. The same things in a trunk would probably have gone through, most of them. Here the open and honest course were the wisest.
Laces, silks, and linens are wound around the body and limbs, or made up into extra and superfluous skirts. Coiffeurs are made to serve as bustles; extra gold watches and jewelry are hung to the inside of skirts, and a dozen other devices are the suggestion of lovely and ingenious woman.
Here, as well as on the Canada frontier, women are found most apt at amateur smuggling. The reasons for this are numerous. Women are by education and domestic necessity close buyers and can not usually forego a bargain. The lines of duty, moral or fiscal, are not closely drawn or clearly defined here. Smuggling is a statutory offense, not a moral crime, and from time immemorial injustice and favoritism have been alleged against the whole tariff on imports. You shall hear plenty of good moral men to-day denouncing all tariff as robbery. Besides, what deference for or loyalty to government demands should we expect of women when they are denied all share in government or law-making? Over against these customs peccadilloes we may set the unanimous verdict of business men that in positions of financial trust and responsibility, and as debtors, women are almost universally honest.
The belief is quite common that smuggling through luggage is much practiced by feeing the inspectors. Of course, the inspectors deny this. They point to the superior inducements to fidelity on their part in the share they secure of seizures, forfeitures, and penalties; to the risk they run of detection in accepting bribes, the inspection being done openly with many interested spectators and paid spies about, and to the serious consequences of detection. Moreover, since the courts in the celebrated Astor suit decided that anything may pass which the person would swear is for personal or family use, the necessity for bribery is largely done away. Mr. Astor recovered from government duties upon $40,000 worth of luggage that had been seized.
This story is told: Two years ago a woman landed with as many trunks as a banyan tree; the inspector had been notified that she was a fashionable milliner in New York. She said to the inspector, “I am in great hurry, and if you will put my baggage right through and come up to my store this evening I will give you a five pound note.” The collector scented more than twenty-five dollars for himself in forfeitures, and began the examination. A dozen pairs of new kid gloves, of four different sizes, were the first thing uncovered. The lady protested that they were all for herself, and that she was entitled to a dozen, and they were passed. But when more gloves of different sizes were found, until there were half a gross, she began to raise her bid. Then fifty pairs of new shoes of many different sizes were turned out, and then silks, flowers, ribbons, fans, and finery à la McFlimsy. She at last offered three hundred dollars to have the trunks passed, but as there was about twelve hundred dollars worth of goods on which was a duty to collect of, say, five hundred dollars, all of which (seventeen hundred dollars) was forfeit, it was no use. The business had gone to a point where the owner could not afford to bid against the government for the purchase of the inspector’s honor. The goods were sent to the seizure room, and the woman was sued for the penalty, as it exceeded the value of the property. After two years of obstacles and delay the case was compromised and settled. The inspector told me that his share of the damages would be much more than the three hundred dollars she offered. Honesty is the best policy, virtue is its own reward, and everybody is honest when it pays best, you see. If the woman had not offered the bribe, and thus put it out of the power of the official to show her any leniency, she would have been allowed to take the goods away on payment of simple duty. She at least learned that there is a time and way for all things, including bribery.
[B] Harper’s for June, 1884.