GUILE OF THE SMUGGLERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22202, 31 August 1935, Page 23

GUILE OF THE SMUGGLERS

STATE OF CHECKMATE WHERE WOMEN EXCEL BY MUltri'.r. I.KWIS HONGKONG, Aug. 3 In tlio enrl.v hours of a pearly morning, while the rose of dawn still warmed the grey of sea and sky, the Haining, coming down from Foochow to Hongkong, drew to hei 1 anchorage in Amoy Harbour. It was the quietest and most | tranquil scene. Here, one felt, life moved at an easy pace, and the people who crowded the city streets alone the hunil so early would rest when the need came upon them, sleeping peacefully beside unfinished tasks. I watched the sampans detach themselves from the conglomerate mass along the waterfront and swarm toward us. Quietly round our stern from the Kulangsu side came one alone, pulling gently shoreward with a lovely rhythmic movement of the oars. Crack-crack! Crack-crack! Hi fie shots rang out and chattering excitement suddenly manifested itself in a group of blue-uniformed customs men at the bow of their bright blue cutter, which had already two sampans in two —the morning's bag. They shouted, pointing anil waving at us and at tho moving sampan. Crack-crack!

But nothing doing. The three rowers were elaborately unconcerned, giving a perfect demonstration of absorption in their work. Crack-crack 1 This time the shots told, fore and aft, and the sampan pulled up and attended, protesting violently, to the bailing of the incoming water. The customs boat pulled officiously over and gathered in its third victim. Afterward 1 asked the young Chinese officer who came aboard the Haining to looksee, what they had found.

Paraffin oil, he said. The sampan had come alongside while we were still doing about 12 knots, hoping to escape notice, and a deck passenger or one of the crew had dropped over a couple of tins, while the officers on watch wero busy with a crowded moment. The inno-cent-looking little boat had then dropped quietly behind and made for the shore; just another of the fishing community. Remarkable Ingenuity The amount of smuggling that goes on between Hongkong, or Formosa, and the Chinese ports is beyond belief, in spite of the strictest supervision from the Chinese Maritime Customs. Sugar, matches, dress materials, paraffin oil —anything saleable that comes into the British or Japanese colonies free, but which is taxed in the Chinese porta and on which even the smallest profit can be made up or down the coast, is pounced upon as a means to easy money. The coastal shipping companies, which are liable for fines if the crews of their ships are found to be carrying contraband goods, have what are known as "searchers" regularly employed on their staffs who go through the crews' quarters on the arrival or departure of every steamer; and what these young men " find," and the ingenuity they encounter in their chase after delinquents, will make entertaining reading some day. No Chinese will give another away to a foreigner, so t)ie searcher, must rely on his own energy, tact and judgment. And there is always the pleasant possibility that in an access of emotion one of the victims of his assiduity may crack him on the head and throw him into the harbour. Feminine Methods

Among the deck (coolie) passengers, who are dealt with by the police, the women are the most difficult to detect in this most womanly of crimes. They wear large bags tied round their waists under their black tunics, and in the bags they carry the spoil —sugar, mostly. A captain's wife who had lately come up from Australia, had gone to meet her husband when the steamer berthed from the north. She leaned on the rai of the upper deck, Watching the crowd bclowr , " Reg!" sho exclaimed, when he came down from the bridge, " look at those women!" And then the Indian policeman came along and one after another h. ripped the bags open with his knife, and the deck became a shambles of sugar. Once at Amoy one of those women, bitten suddenly with the urge to martyrdom, jumped overboard as a protest against this annoying interference. The weight of the sugar took her to the bottom and she was drowned. 1 lie mob spirit immediately seized the others,' and the ship's officers anil the police had the greatest difficulty of stemming a wholesale demonstration of women's suffrage. On that occasion, thev were allowed, by thoroughly frightened men, to take their spoils ashore. It is never advisable for foreigners to run the risk of calling down censure from one or another of the powerful guilds, which rule every * branch of Chinese industry in the coastal towns. A boycott may be imposed from the most unlikely quarter. When in Rome ....

I must tell you the story of a missioner from tho interior who took a trip on a steamer between Canton and Haiphong. After dinner one of the passengers brought a roulette board into the saloon and, so to speak, a good time was being had by all, when they wero joined by "the cloth." The plav was immediately stopped, which much distressed the missionary. i( Please continue," he said, politely*, and they did. Presently ho joined in himself, and showed much interest in the game and its workings. He was a perfectly serious student. How much did these things cost? he asked. Whei,'; did one get them ? . At last ho explained. Tho Chinese in the city in which ho worked were, as are all Chinese, inveterate gamblers. Nothing would ever stop them. What could be more practical, then, that the mission should supply the medium for their entertainment, and reap tho much needed benefit? He is said to, have followed lip this idea with eminently satisfactory results.