MAN WITHOUT DOPE

Waipa Post, Volume 42, Issue 3314, 25 June 1931, Page 3

MAN WITHOUT DOPE

CHANNEEL PORT COMEDY.

Port authorities on both sides of the English Channel are making new and intensive efforts to check the everincreasing activities of elusive dope traffickers. | Special precautions are being tak-

?6n on the French side to prevent the entry of the smugglers into France. Passengers from England are closely scrutinised on landing, and not even the most innocent of tourists is safe from suspicion. •A Daily Express writer says: Here is my own unfortunate experience the .;' other day. My story has this sound, moral for travellers to the Continent: Do not be absent-minded in a French Customs house. '' I had successfully emerged from the disembarkation and Customs for- ...'"' malities at one of the leading French ports. I had picked up my suitcase and was sauntering through a large crowded room on my way to the train . for Paris. Suddenly and unexpectedly a soft but official voice: " Your luggage, monsieur, has it been examined? " With a start I realised that I had absent-mindedly walked ■ through the Customs house without submitting my bag to the little formality of baggage examination. WHISPERED CONFERENCE. I smiled benevolently at the gendarme. " How stupid of me," I condescended, waking from my coma. "Here am I, a regular and experienced traveller, forgetting the Customs." "Oh! You come here often?" "But yes," in my best French, "very often." We reached the long, low bench, and displayed my suitcase to the grave authority on the other side of it. "Anything to declare?" " Nothing at all—not even a little cigarette." This in my airy, experienced way. I hardly noticed the whispered few words between the gendarme and the Customs officer. Soon, however, I began to take notice.* Shirts, collars, shoes, papers, suits, shaving gear, one after the other came out and were fingered, felt, and caressed. The bag itself was tapped here, there, and all around. Strange and unusual thoroughness. At last it is finished. I prepare to pick up my ,i suitcase.

The gentle gendarme, ; however, speaks again :.__ - " Will you come this way, please.' Things are happening, somehow, but I go. I began to feel guilty of I know not what. I observe, as we pass through a little door, "Body Examination." I also observe that another gendarme accompanies us. I find myself in a small, narrow, cell-like chamber, not too clean. There is an iron bedstead, too, covered with a decidedly dirty blanket. I had visions of the rack and the Inquisition. What had I been up to? "Will you kindly remove your coat? " I comply. TICKLED FROM HEAD TO FOOT. My two gendarmes seize the coat •greedily. Out come papers, pocket, lining is turned out. Seams, lining, crevices are touched, felt, and pressed. The same thing happened to the jacket. s."Do you mind if I examine the body? " "Not at all." From head to foot I was tickled and smoothed. A finger was deftly run along the inside -of my shoes. " Merci, monsieur," said the gentle

gendarme. . I recovered my grave British sense

of humour. "Now tell me what all this is about." " I am so very sorry you have been troubled, but you see we have to be so very careful of drug traffickers, •who are specially active just now " "But why on earth did you pick ton me? " ■ "Well, monsieur, you looked so 'distrait' Your absent-mindedness was so suspicious. But then, honest men have nothing to fear, is it rot "I congratulate you, monsieur le gendarme, but what a pity-for you/? He bowed, we shook hands, we parted And that is a lesson for the ab-sent-minded in a Custom-house.