SOME CURIOSITIES OF SMUGGLING.

Kumara Times, Issue 1016, 3 January 1880, Page 4

SOME CURIOSITIES OF SMUGGLING.

| > [leisure hotjb ] I The method of proceeding with a boatI load of tubs of liquor were as various as* I the ingenuity of man could devise. A boat » would be freighted from the Dodger, for instance, with a hundred or more spirit : eyes tied together in pairs, with a rope just f longenough to swing, John Giloin fashion, ' over a man's shoulders. It would make L. the land on a dark night in obedience to [; signals so undemonstrative as to escape i remark from everyone save those on the { iook out for them. Two minutes after I feeling the shingle it would be empty, and, I if lucky, off again, and the whole of the [ tubs on the shoulders of runners on the I way to safe hiding. In case of alarm the \ boat might be abandoned for execution by sawing asunder; but so watchful were the scouts that the band had generally timely ' notice of official intrusion, and would make off by routes where, in the darkness of night, a pursuit would have been Z neither pleasant nor practical. Somer times a sham descent would be made at one point to which the attention of the preventives would be diverted, while at another point a boat would be cleared out without interruption. Sometimes a daring crew would actually make a bolt for the harbor, and run through the shipping at anchor into the Pent, or inner basin, under the very nose of the preventives stationed on the two piers. In'suoh cases it was the practice for confederates to distract the attention of the watchers by getting up some practical joke, in which they were led to join, or by picking a quarrel with them, or by treating them to drink. One such daring exploit was much talked of at the time. A long, light boat, carrying several hundred kegs, after lying below the water-line till night had set in came on with muffled oars at a swinging pace, and dashing, almost as soon as discovered, between the piers, was cleverly steered along the shipping, and without let or hinderance arrived at the selected landingplace—of course, taking no notice of the attentions paid, her by the preventives. The latter made sure of a prize, and hastened to make the seizure ; but they thought it prudent to gather in some force first,, and they had a good distance to go, the result being that when they got to the boat every tub had vanished, and only the empty shell was left to reward their exertions. If the runners were pursued the most likeliest thing to happen would be . that some brawny fellow, assuming drunkenness, would allow himself to be caught with a brace of tubs on him ; he would make a violent and prolonged resistance to his captors, and would struggle to get away as though life hung upon his freedom; and when at length he was secured and hauled before the authorities, it would be found that he had been contending so furiously, not for brandy or hollands, but for beer or salt water; and he had to be discharged. ' It would occasionally happen that boatcargoes would be landed which, or part ol which, could not safely be run at once to hiding. In such a case the tubs had to be put out of sight bb could best be managed. At low water they would be buried deep in the shingle, or thrust into extemporised holes in the chalky cliffs, or sunk with heavy stones among the sea-wood drifted between the timbers of some jetty. At one time these cacheß along, shore were very freqnent, and formed a sort of store-house whence the smuggler could call " spirits from the vasty deep" at his will. - A cunning excise officer, however, played havoc among the caches by meanß of a rather singular device. He trained a terrier pup to play the part of detective, simply by mixing the poor creature's food with Bpiritst nothing being allowed to pass down Puppy's throat which had not been flavoured with alcohol. The consequence was that the pup never grew into a dog, and that he did grow to relish his food . thus flavoured, and preferred it to anything else. Thus qualified, he would be led forth after a day of fasting for a walk along the shore, or about the cliffs, or in the various tracks leading from the coast inland. When poor hungry Tray came out, and immediately began pawing the | ground and scratching and barking like a mad creature; and whenever he com- { menced that performance it proved! always well worth the excise officer's while to set his men a digging. The poor doggy, however, had but a short life of it; for one cloudy, misty morning in November, just as hehad begun his scratching among the shingle, a shot from some invisible marksman laid him dead among the pebbles, and finally stopped a career which, patriotic as it was, was too disastrous to the interests of free-trade to be allowed to continue. The smuggling of lace was carried on some threescore years back as a means of livelihood by persons who devoted themselves entirely to it. Women wduld conceal it about their persons, often defeating the skill of the sharpest searchers ; men would line their boots or their hats with it —it would sometimes he found under a ' luxuriant head of hair—and again rolled up in the hollow crutches of some suffering cripple. An old "salt" once told me a tale of a pet goat, the favorite of the master oj a paeket-boat making regular trips to Holland. This accommodating animal ' had consented to have his back and sides Bhaved, and to be fitted with the skin of a martyred comrade, ingeniously attahced to his flanks by slender threads of goat's hair. Then the.space between his bare back and his overcoat formed a convenient and elastic pocket for as many yards of Brussels or Mechlin as his owner chose to cram into it. Another method of landing lace was by fishing for it. Small packet* -of lace secured in air-tight tins tigpy fastened together would >e sunk vjfcpwtain spots,

whence they could be readily fished up by those who knew where to angle for them. Tobacco and spirits were also sunk in the same way, and now and then, unfortunately, it might be for the smuggler, would fall a prey to the fisherman, who, however, if all accounts were true, were as likely as not to leave such prizes where they found them. Perhaps the oldest phase of smuggling (for smugglling itrealy was) was a practice which prevailed for years in Dover, and was carried openly in fall view of the preventives and all the inhabitants of the town. About 1819-20 the fashion came of wearing Leghorn bonnets of exorbitant dimensions. They were huge straw plaits, nearly circular, and averaging about a yard in diameter, they sold in England at two or three or more guineas each, according to their quality, and nearly half their cost was the duty paid on importing them. Now, according to the law, duty is not demandable on any article of dress worn by travellers. A dealer in leghorns, contrived to profit enormously by this law. He hired a numerous troop of the poorest women and girls—ragged, sqaalid, and wretchedlooked creatures they were, to be sure—and paid them almost a nominal fee for accompanying him daily in his voyages to and from the French coast, contracting with the captain of one of the steamers for season tickets for the whole of them. The troop regularly left Dover in the morning with scarcely a handful of bonnet on tbeir heads ; they dinned at Calais, if they could afford to dine, and came back in the afternoon, two or three score of them, each with a bran new leghorn of fullest dimensions on her head, the rag of bonnet worn in the morning being stuffed in their pockets. On landing they were all marched to the speculator's warehouse, denuded of their luxurious coif f ures, and dismissed for the day. A hun* dred times at least have I seen these for* lorn and tattered purveyors of fashion both going out and coming in, and 1 could tell the boat tbey travelled by, while it was yet miles away, by the straw-colored, amber line, which under a cloudy sky,. would glimmer like a streak of sunshine ere the hull of the vessel was distinctly visible.