A MIXED "BAG"

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 60, 4 December 1917, Page 8

A MIXED "BAG"

CURIOSITIES OE TRADE WITH THE ENEMY. A recent issue of the "London Gazctte" contained a long list of goods which had been seized during the current year as being of suspccted enemy origin. "It is a strangely-miscellaneous colTection of wares that lias been dealt with (says the "Daily News"). The. first to attract attention is a consignment of soldiers' boots sent from Colon to a commanding officer at Sterkrade, in tho Rhine Province, taken from n! ship arriving from Holland. One naturally asks how it came to England, see' ing that Storkrade is not far from tha Dutch frontier. A largo number of consignments of books and music, chiefly from Scandinavia, and most of it addressed to the United States, ia also included. We know that niusicr is always suspected, because it may convey cypher messages. A parcel of pen-nibs from Leyden to Vassar College, in tho States, is also included. We also read of chemicals, photogravures, chromographs, blankets, cloth, violin strings, brilliantino, and perfumes front' every corner of tho globe, and a curious entry is "colouring matter for Easter eggs," from Switzerland to New York. A second list is connected witli goods imported in contravention of the laws relating to trading with tho onemy. Here the first item is a parcel of musical boxes from Switzerland to Amsterdam; and one of the curiosities of the schedule is a parcel of butter and soap consigned from Buenos Aires to the Red Cross at Copenhagen.