{273}
CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
CONTENTS
SMUGGLING, PAST AND PRESENT.
IN ALL SHADES.
MAN-LIKE APES—AND MAN.
SPIRITED AWAY.
FORTUNE.
THE IVORY TRADE.
SPOKEN IN ANGER.
No. 122.—Vol. III.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, MAY 1, 1886.
SMUGGLING, PAST AND PRESENT.
BY AN EXAMINING OFFICER.
In a recently issued, readable little volume byMr W. D. Chester, H.M. Customs, London,entitled Chronicles of the Customs, there occursa chapter on the tricks of smugglers, whichsuggests an interesting comparison of past andpresent methods of smuggling. The volumereferred to treats of many matters connectedwith Customs’ work besides the prevention ofsmuggling; but we must confine our remarksto smuggling pure and simple, with a fewexamples of clever evasions of the Customs’laws.
From the days of Ethelred, when it wasenacted that ‘every smaller boat arriving atBillingsgate should pay for toll or custom onehalfpenny, a larger boat with sails one penny,’those who have had to carry out the collectionof the revenue have been disliked byeverybody who had to submit to taxation. Itis not easy to understand this dislike. Peoplewho use coal, gas, water, or any of the necessitiesof existence do not, as a rule, view with verygreat disfavour the people whom they pay tosupply these commodities. Why they shoulddislike those whose business it is to collect thefunds which provide government with thewherewithal to insure protection for life, property,and trade, is an anomaly which it is difficultto comprehend. In olden days, the bold anddaring smuggler was the darling of the coast,and the officers who endeavoured to prevent hisdepredations the most disliked of all governmentofficials. Yellow-backed novels have portrayedhis prowess in the most glowing colours.The word-pictures which represent him as afree-and-easy, good-natured soul, with gentlemanlymanners and genteel exterior, have beenread and admired wherever English novels of aseafaring type have been circulated; and no excitingocean tale is considered sufficiently spicyunless a chapter or two is devoted to the daringthief who defies his country’s laws, and isrewarded with admiration for doing so; whileordinary thieves are spoken of with contempt,and obtain a far from acceptable recompense inthe shape of jail ‘skilly.’
No longer ago than 1883, an amusing case,illustrative of this feeling, occurred in the neighbourhoodof Sunderland. A party