SMUGGLING IN ITS DROLL ASPECTS.

The Custom-house, London, although it figures in almanacs in the list of 'places of public amusement,' is by no means a cheerful building. Situated in the extremely busy and dirty thoroughfare called Lower Thames Street, next door to Billingsgate Market, far-famed for good fish and choice language, it has few attractions for those who are not compelled by business needs to enter its portal. Here is nothing but noisy activity. Merchants' clerks, porters, car-men, and the numberless beings who form the rank and file of a vast commercial centre, elbow each other as they push through the ever swinging doors in their anxiety to get their business transacted.

Occasionally a knot of country people may be met with in the 'Long-room' staring about them in the fruitless search after anything in the shape of entertainment; but with these exceptions the place is given up to business. If these visitors were able to find their way to the Museum, they would there see much to both interest and astonish them; but this part of the building is perhaps necessarily withheld from the general public, for there seems in the busy hive so much for everybody to do, that drones in the shape of sight-seers would hardly be welcome.

Yet, the Custom-house contains a museum of real curiosities—memorials of attempts at smuggling. Various causes have contributed to the decline of contrabandism as a means of livelihood, chief among which are the necessary reductions and alterations in the Customs tariff since the adoption in this country of free-trade principles. When such valuable and portable articles as watches and lace were heavily taxed, the temptation to secrete them was naturally very common. At the same period too the duty on spirits was about five times as much as its intrinsic worth, and therefore this class of goods afforded a rich harvest to the successful smuggler. Things are changed now, for lace and watches are duty free, and the tax upon spirits has been reduced considerably more than one half. Tobacco and spirits, owing perhaps to the universal demand for them, have always, above other things, met with the smuggler's particular regard; and such cases as now come before our police magistrates are generally confined to these two articles. A matter-of-fact heavy fine and confiscation of the surreptitious goods, is the usual result of conviction; and the smuggler—which our childhood's fancy painted as a brave hero fighting the myrmidons of an oppressive government in some wild cave on the sea-shore—is quietly walked off to prison until he can pay the forfeit. 'The Smuggler's Cave' still remains; for with that clinging fondness for the traditions of past times, it is the fashion to dignify any natural crevice in our cliffs with that title; but now the modern policeman steps upon the scene, and poetical ideas vanish with the sound of his creaking contract boots.

The chief evidence of smuggling as it has existed within the present century is furnished by certain articles which have been seized from time to time, and which are now lodged in the Custom-house Museum. It is to this Museum that we now intend to direct our readers' attention, and more especially to a certain large cabinet in the corner of the room, the contents of which supply a title to this paper. The first thing which is pointed out to us is a ship's 'fender,' which we may remind our readers is a block of wood with a rope attached slung over the bows to prevent the abrasion which might be caused by contact with another vessel. This particular fender was found to be hollow, and to contain several pounds of compressed tobacco. The officer who thought of looking for the soothing weed in such a receptacle must have been an extremely 'cute individual. But here is a still more extraordinary hiding-place, and one which must have involved a journey aloft for its detection—a ship's block, the sheave or wheel of which is actually made of solid tobacco. Here is an ornamental pedestal which once adorned the corner of a captain's cabin, and would perhaps adorn it still, had it not been found gorged with contraband cigars. Another commander appears to have been a more moderate smoker, for he was content with only two pounds of cheroots, which were found inside a sham loaf on his breakfast table. Here we have a number of cigars knotted singly on a string, like the tail of a kite; these were dropped between the inner and outer timbers of a ship's side; whilst holes drilled in the ends of an egg-box furnish lodging for several more.

A broomstick does not seem at first sight to offer much room for concealment, but here is one which, accidentally broken, revealed a core of that rope-like commodity known to those who chew the weed, as 'pigtail.' Cakes of tobacco formed to fit into the sole of a boot shew another ingenious mode of disposal. But the prize for inventive talent must certainly be awarded to the clever rascal who compressed snuff into slabs, and stamped them to exactly imitate the oil-cakes on which cattle are fattened. Whether the discovery of the deception was owing to moral objections on the part of some experienced cow to chew anything stronger than cud does not transpire; but the real nature of the food was somehow ascertained, and what might have proved the staple of a lucrative trade, was transformed into the original dust from which it sprung.

The stewardess of a Jersey steamer is the next delinquent who comes before our notice. On various occasions the petticoat has been found to be a useful auxiliary to the smuggler, and the one which was taken from this lady sufficiently proves the truth of our remark, for twenty-seven pounds of tobacco were hidden in its folds. Two more garments of the same nature contained respectively eighteen and twenty pounds of cigars; whilst another, with the help of a number of fish-bladders hanging from the waistband, was charged with several gallons of brandy. Bladders of cognac have also been found attached to a ship's keel several feet under water. It is to be presumed that the discovery of these last was not made in the Thames, the water of that river not being celebrated for its transparency. Artificial lobster-pots thrown overboard with corks attached, also afford favourite receptacles for various articles. Another stewardess, in this case belonging to a Rotterdam boat, did a little ostensible trading in pigeons. Here is the box in which they were caged, constructed with a false bottom, below which were hidden a few pounds of Cavendish. It is a question whether birds ever before so well deserved to be called carrier pigeons. The journey to Rotterdam is but a short one, so that although this lady did not indulge in such wholesale doings as her sister of Jersey, she worked on the principle that 'many a little makes a mickle.' Here is an apparently well-bound volume which a studious individual carried under his arm during the transaction of his daily business at one of the docks. It was found to be made of glass, moulded into the form of a book, and covered with leather. That it was a work of much spirit was proved from the fact that it was full of eau de vie. Another book is exhibited, the leaves of which are punched through with round holes from cover to cover, for the reception of watches.

We are told that the detection of most of these contrivances for concealing goods about the person has been due to the nervous trepidation of the delinquents themselves; an apt illustration of Hamlet's words: 'Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.' It would seem an almost impossible task to secrete one hundred and forty-seven watches in a single garment, but nevertheless one individual succeeded in doing so. Unfortunately he found a difficulty in sitting down, and the continued fatigue of keeping his feet during a long voyage so told upon his nerves, that fancying he was detected and watched, he gave himself up to justice, literally clothed in his own confusion. Here we have four tin boxes about an inch in depth and about two feet square, having a capacity of four and a half gallons, which, filled with spirit, were found hidden below the clothing in a passenger's boxes. But the latest contribution to the Museum is a small quantity of treacle-like fluid labelled 'Nicotine Poison.' This is a sample of a consignment lately received from Hamburg, and politely returned to the port of shipment, by order of the Customs Board. It is imagined that some enterprising genius had it in his mind to convert by its aid the refuse leaves of the British cabbage into Havana cigars. We have already had experience of Hamburg sherry and Hamburg butter, and doubtless the Customs Commissioners had these commodities in view when they rejected the persuasive overtures of the narcotic in question.

Besides the things which we have enumerated, there are various articles of interest in this Museum. Several curious old prints, shewing what the Custom-house was like in the days when the London suburbs were little villages, separated from the city by some miles of meadow-land. It was then the practice of the Commissioners to ride or drive to their duties, and stable accommodation was therefore a necessary adjunct of the premises. Here too are shewn the dies used when each outport had its own particular seal—this was years ago, before the telegraphs and railways had so effectually lessened their distance from London. 'Leverpoole' was then a creek attached to the port of Chester; on the other hand, many towns which have now sunk into comparative insignificance, were then flourishing sea-ports of great commercial activity. Some curious records relative to the payment of officers are also well worth attention. Here we learn, by marginal notes, that certain unfortunate beings are to be deprived of their salaries, 'they being Papists;' whilst one is mulcted of his due because 'his wife is now or was lately a Papist.' These notes were written in the year previous to that which saw the landing of the Prince of Orange, and they form a singularly terse comment upon the state of public feeling which led to that event. The world is now nearly two hundred years older, and has grown more tolerant. We cannot say that it has become honest; but for the reasons already given, it is not likely that many additions will be made to the curiosities of Smuggling.