A SMUGGLER’S SECRET.

Thames Star, Volume LX, Issue 16959, 4 December 1926, Page 7

A SMUGGLER’S SECRET.

HIDDEN IN CHIMNEY. The restoration of a famous seventeenth century mansion, at Wivenhoe, near Colchester, lias led to some interesting finds, in an ancient sealed clipboard were some of the earliest mafdies, four inches long, half an inch wide and tipped at both ends with sulphur. Close by is a huge fireplace, seven feet six inches wide. The proximity of the matches to the fireplace might have added another to the long list of fire mysteries at country houses and in that case, says the Children’s Newspaper, there would have been lost a -secret, for up the great chimney there is a secret compartment. Some previous owner of the old place was a smuggler, and here was the hiding place for his unlawful gods! Much is heard nowadays about smuggling in America, and it is remembered that many of tlie men who fought under Nelson and other British heroes were smugglers. Few people in those days thought smuggling disreputable. The late Lord Malmesbury, himself a Minister of State, wrote with much zest of his own experiences at Heron Court, near Christchurch. He was once the prisoner of smugglers. While bird’s-nesting in his father’s park he saw smugglers burying kegs of brandy in a copse. They seized and threatened to kill him oil the spot unless lie remained quiet for an hour. He remained as mute as a mouse while they finished their work. Then they made him drink some of the liquor which they drew from a tapped keg and swear solemnly that he would not tell of the incident. He went back to tlie house when released. and was scolded by bis father for his long absence, but he kept his pledge. He dared not tell of tlie smugglers iaud the hoard they had buried in the park. Robert Louis Stevenson lived tor a time at Christchurch, and must have heard the stories of the neighbourhood, for the smugglers and treasure-hunters of some of his tales have quite the Christchurch flavour. There was a true Stevenson eh,a arete r in a certain Dr. Quartlev, who practised for 50 years at Christchurch in those old days. One stormy night he was knocked up from bed by two muffled mounted men. They commanded him to take horse and ride with them to where there was work to do. On the way they were joined bv two other men, and all rode in silence to a lonely cottage in the New Forest. There he found a young man desperately wounded. The doctor extracted a bullet from his back, ami ordered tlie patient to be kept quiet.

“Well, Tom,” said, one of the men to the sufferer, “wilt thee stay her© and he hanged, or wilt we tip thee into the cart ” Poor Tom chose the cart, and away they ent into the depths of the forest.' The winter passed, and then before dawn one morning there was a great knocking at the doctor’s door. The smugglers had come back to bring him a, contraband gift to reward him for saving Tom’s lifeFifteen years later in a trip to the Avan, the doctor was the recipient of much polite attention from the boatman. It was Tom. long cured of his wound, and, it may lie hoped, of smuggling. •