PATRIOTS Who SMUGGLE "Just to be CLEVER"

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6901, 6 May 1929, Page 4

PATRIOTS Who SMUGGLE "Just to be CLEVER"

SMUGGLING done on a small scale by the average man or woman traveller is due not so much to criminal intent as colossal ignor-

ance of Customs laws. People think of Customs officials as “those awful people who muss up our baggage.” When a married couple are caught smuggling the husband frequently plays the role of Adam, professes ignorance of Eve f s defection and blames it all on her. Men and women who ordinarily are patriotic to the hilt, depriving themselves to buy Government bonds in time of war, do small-scale smuggling with the naive idea that it is not a disloyal or dishonest piece of trickery plotted against their Government, but a clever game affording one bit of relief from the boredom of everyday existence.

Just as ingenious devices are used by the petty smuggler for getting in, duty-free, inexpensive articles as are employed by the professional smuggler who tries to sneak in jewels and drugs worth a fortune. These are a few of the observations of human nature made by Miss G. R. Cline (an Associate Justice of the United States Customs Court in New York, the first woman Federal Judge to be appointed in America). Many tricky devices and subtle artifices were detected by Judge Cline while she served in Cleveland as Customs Appraiser of Merchandise. Her position required an eagle eye and The conviction that any innocentJooking package might be an arrangement for smuggling as intricate as a Japanees puzzle. You cannot be gullible and have an over amount of faith in the fundamental honesty of mankind and be a Customs appraiser—at least not for long, because inevitably there comes disillusionment. Take, for instance, the case of the elegant fruit cake. One day it ar-

rived in the Port of Cleveland looking so luscious and edible that one didn’t need to be an epicure or a gourmand to be tempted to sample it. That is, it looked fruity, but actually it wasn’t, and that, and its weight, aroused the suspicions of Miss Clme, the appraiser. Her instincts as a w oman ,and

her knowledge of the culinary art came into play and proved valuable assets in her work. A huge fruit gorgeous as this one and worti sending across an ocean, would never, pondered the appraiser, be baked without fruit. For a fruit cake without fruit is like cider without apples. And its weight was decidedly queer. E\eiy good cook knows that any cake worth baking or eating, to say nothing of sending to another country as a gift, should be light and fluffy. This one felt like a ship’s anchor. While it was a monster cake, about 24 inches long, a foot or so high and fragrant with spices, as odorous as a fruit cake should be, still it ought to be lighter, thought the appraiser. So the beautiful cake was stabbed right trough its vitals in a way which, if it chanced to be an innocent cake, it would come out unharmed; but if it were masquerading, its disguise would be revealed. And, sure enough, no fruit was in the fruit cake, not even a small, shrivelled raisin. But, right in the middle, was something hard. Suspiciously hard. And, when the cake was tip-tilted and shaken, it gurgled. Cut open, it was found that two quart bottles of liquor graced its inside. There was, for instance, an innocent angel—innocent as all angels should be—which came winging its way across the ocean. Just a crude little statuette, about two feet tall, not even marble, but made of some sort of composition. , This small statuette of an angel one might well pass by in an appraiser’s office, feeling simply that one in a far country with religious faith had sent it over to a relative to remind him of things spiri ( -

But as an appraiser’s duty is to examine every package that arrives, Miss Cline toyed with this angel, and soon she spied a piece of burlap on the soles of the angel’s feet. Just a bit of cloth, bui? very suspicious. Off went the head and, after the decapitation, a bottle was found within the angel!

Even the holy Eastertide is sometimes the season for smuggling. One Easter there came to the attention of Miss Cline a little box with modest contents, obviously sent by some person in moderate circumstances to a little girl. The box, fashioned like a rabbit’s nest, contained a couple of cheap handkerchiefs, an Easter card and about a dozen small Easter eggs. In the centre of the nest were arranged two large chocolate eggs and one white cream egg about as large as a hen’s egg. As appraisers are always on the lookout for candies filled with liquors, one of the large chocolate eggs was opened. The Easter bunny had laid a golden ggg! Nestling in the creamy centre of the egg was a diamond ring. Even literature conceals smuggled goods at times. Miss Cline once examined three ordinary-looking books which came into port. They had marble backs, mottled bindings and

were unfiorm in size. They were packed in a box, and Miss Cline removed one to see whether or not it was in a foreign language. Then, taking out the second, she thought it felt queer. She shook it. It went glug-glug. These were not pearls of written wisdom rattling, but the “gurgles of hooch.” Drugs are frequently smuggled through the Customs in newspapers, cigars and sometimes in artificial fruit, Luscious pears aud ripe-looking plums and oranges frequently hold the

bauned narcotics. Her womanly qualities as a judge of merchandise were also brought into play one day when an assistant collector walked into Miss Cline’s office with three fur coats slung over his arm. He held up one and asked her what she thought of it. Her slightly scornful comment was that it was cat fur. But it looked so luxurious to the assistant collector that he persisted. Wasn’t it better fur than that? Surely Miss Cline was joking. But Miss Cline wasn’t. Cat fur, she insisted. And cat fur it proved to be. The other was an ordinary muskrat, while the third proved to be an exquisite lamb, with sable trimmings. It transpired that the owners of these coats were three school teachers from a town in Ohio who had been touring in Canada during their vacation in the summertime. They had bought these coats, “duty paid,” buying them presumably from a reputable house. The people from whom they bought them smuggled them into Buffalo and then the collector seized them. The teachers were really innocent of any wrongdoing in the matter. But'they had been extremely gullible, as so many women shoppers are when in foreign countries. They are told that the merchandise is duty-free, or they buy below market value and do not realise that they are assessed not on what they paid for the articles but what they are actually worth in the foreign market. The ignorance displayed by the average citizen regarding Customs is always astonishing to Customs appraisers. There was the incident of a well-known and highly intelligent citizen, patriotic to the core, who grew irate and rebellious when he was assessed and made to pay duty on a valuable piece of jewellery sent him from abroad as a gift. Because it was a gift and something which he nersonallv had not purchased, he

The ignorance displayed by the average citizen regarding Customs is always astonishing to Customs appraisers. There was the incident of a well-known and highly intelligent citizen, patriotic to the core, who grew irate and rebellious when he was assessed and made to pay duty on a valuable piece of jewellery sent him from abroad as a gift. Because it was a gift and something which he personally had not purchased, he could not understand why he should be assessed on it.

Many are the tragedies which come in the -wake of the importing of antiques. The antique game is one designed for the gullible and the lover of beautiful old things. In Judge Cline’s memory of antique cases is one concerning a young married woman, in moderate circumstances, who was in the clutch of the antique craze. She had deprived herself for years, scraping together enough money to go abroad. She bought one piece of furniture, an old chair, which she had been assured was more than 100 years old. Articles of furniture more than 100 years old come in dutyfree. This woman was jubilant over her purchase, visioning how it would beautify her home and arouse the envy of all her neighbours. But she was not only bitterly disappointed but she was likewise horrified when she discovered that she had been guilty of smuggling in undeclared goods. For the chair was not a rare old piece, but simply an old one, aud yet not old enough—not nearly a century old. Its only claim to being an antique was that it had one antique arm. And this is the case with many pieces bought as antiques.