ATTEMPTS TO SMUGGLE GOLD

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 70, 23 March 1920, Page 2

ATTEMPTS TO SMUGGLE GOLD

LUCKY OHINAJIAN FROM NEW:

ZEALAND.

(I'BOM OUR OWN COIIRESFOHDENI.;

SYDNEY, 16th March,

Sev?('.-a.l more Chinese have been caught recently by Customs officers in trying to smuggle gold away to the Ea st. The officers made a haul on the steamer St. Albans to-day. "How much gold you got?" aeked a searcher-of an elderly Chinaman who boarded the steamer in Melbourne. "Twenny pong," replied John, waving the legal amount permitted. "But what do you call this?" asked the official, feeling the sides of John's coat, jokingly. John started as if stung. And there, sura enough, were forty sovereigns sewed mto the lining. "And how much have you got?" whs tha questionoput to another Ghina-nvm, drowsing in his bunk, and apparently: n.aitteront to everything. "Twenny, pong," oarne the invariable answer. He did lmve "twenny pong" ii> his pockets — but something strained in his attitude "jada the searchers examine his hands. He had five sovereigns pressed in the paim of one hand, and four in the other. A Chimiimau^ 'who had clm-.e frcm New Zealand by the ilaheno, and whose luggage was held in bond, pending the departure of the St. Albans, asked to be given some blankets from his pack, us it was "welly col." This was permitted, and then he asked if lie might have his teapot a.nd washbasin. An official took tho teapot, in its basket covering, out of the pack, and was about to hand it over, when a quiver in the Chinaman's eye made him pause. "Wait till 1 look inside," he said—and there, neatly packed within the teapot, were 3S sovereigns. The officials' first intentioa was to confiscate these sovereigns also. But when they inquired into the matter they found that as John had brought thsm from New Zealand, they had no right to interfere. It was New Zealand's loss, not Australia's. So the sovereigns were handed Back, and at loast one smiling Celestial face looked over the rai! as the St. Albans left for the East this afternoon.