CUSTOM-HOUSE HUMOUR.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1071, 3 November 1882, Page 3

CUSTOM-HOUSE HUMOUR.

The London Standard writes German custom house officers are accused of enlivening their dull labours by discovering new developments of a lately-invented amusement When a timid importer presents himself with some article to he passed through the ordeal of their inspection, they find a humorous kind of sport in charging, not on the article inselt, hut on some quite insignificant and separable acgide.it about it. Some of the best hits thus made are really creditable to their ingenuity. One of the earliest was to charge a Roquefort or Camemhert cheese, wrapped in tinfoil, as “ plated,” and by another pleasant and profitable fiction it was determined that a tin of beef was “ fine iron ware.” More recently pomatum has been made to appear as china, and American hams sewn up in coarse canvas pay duty as “fine linen.” Most amusing of all is the case of an unfortunate lady who, having imported a small jar of pickled cucumbers, worth a few | pence, found the contents described as “sweetmeats,” and charged two shillings. The German palate is not credited with extreme sensitiveness, but it could probably, [ except at a custom-house, distinguish between vinegar and sugar ; and even German customs officers might object to be clothed in the “ fine linen ” of the American hams. 1 These practical jokes are among the plea- , sentries of protection, and,though it is very likely that they are more harmful to trade than beneficial to revenue.it would he churlish to grudge handworked officials their little amusements. Besides the laugh has , so often been on the side of the smuggler i and the evader of duties that o-c can I afford to see it, for once, on the side of the j office!. It is an old story that when leal was taxed and statuary was free pig lead u»ed to he cast for export in rough statuettes | of Nannleou 1. At the present moment English manufacturers are making thin sheet iron for export to America as raw material. But the sheets are stamped in patterns for cutting and bonding ready to bo marie at once into tods, and the tax on manufactured articles is avoided. And as for taxing things as if they were something that they are not, it is but an extension of our system of buying them, and eating and drinking them on the same What would he the duty on continental wines if wine and nothing hut wine were charged ? The question is one of degree, and it has been a matter for dispute since the days of Roman case law whether the picture belongs to the canvas or the canvas to the picture. Generally speaking, no doubt, the pot should follow the pomatum, though many cases are conceivable in which the pomatum should follow the pot. But, the German idea of charging the whole at the rate of the most heavily taxed item may easily be carried too far. One may smile at finding a lady’s pickled cucumber detained and taxed as sweetmeats, hut it would he disastrous for the lady herself to be stopped as a consignment of false hair nr pearl powder.