THE OPIUM TRAFFIC.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 67, 12 December 1907, Page 9

THE OPIUM TRAFFIC.

The Customs Department of the Commonwealth has an oxtensivo contract on hand <n ondearouring to prevent the smuggling of opium, but now and then it succeeds in making somo important captures. Ono was recorded the other day from Melbourne, and now another, which has amusing features, has been effected at Pino Creek, near Port Darwin. In this instance thirty tins of opium wore found secreted in a case of yams consigned to a Chineso storekeeper, one Yet Loong, who lias, it appoars, talten a prominent part in the agitation to prevent the importation of opium into the Northern Territory,' and with other loading morchants lately signed a letter' appearing in a local papor protesting, against the injustice of certain insinuations that the morchants were helping the work of smuggling. At 2 (.'clock the other morning, in Sydney, thero wns an exciting chase on the part of a policeman aftßr a Chineso who was discovered carrying a bag containing 54 tins of opium, valued at £100. " Whon the Chinese, a ship's cook named Wong Yook, caught sight of.the constable he dropped the bag and made off, with the policeman after him. But pre-, sently ho was captured, and when the pursuor and pursued went hack to where the bag was lying the opium was revealed. There >s an element of humour in this opium restriction business, as thero is in most things. Some wags, stimulated by the roward of £50 offered by the Federal Govornmont. for the conviction of smugglers, sent word round to tho Customs authorities at a Queensland, port the other day that thero was a plant of opium on an incoming steamer from China; but when tlio officors of the law, eager for their quarry, seized the tins and dragged them forth from their placo of concealment, thoy found to their disgust that those were filled, not with opium, but with treacle. Therefore, some new instructions liavo gone forth from headquarters to the Customs officers, namely, that tho reward is 'n no caso to bo paid until tho alleged opium has been tested.