Spirit Of The Age

DEVICES OF SMUGGLERS

Dutiable Articles that Are Intercepted in the Mails.

A Sharp Trick Frustrated to Evade the Duty on Silk Stockings.

"You will be surprised to hear of the curious assortment of dutiable articles that are intercepted in the steamship mails from foreign post offices," said a prominent official of the custom-house to a reporter for the New York Morning Journal. "The post is a favorite medium with persons in Great Britain, France, Germany and other countries for shipping presents to friends in the United States. The senders probably do not think of the duties to be paid when they forward their packages, but under the custom laws and regulations presents of merchantable value are classed as dutiable, like goods imported in the regular way.

Tradesmen in London, Paris, Berlin, and other European capitals use the mails pretty regularly to send samples and goods of small bulk to American customers.

"Ladies find an easy, cheap and safe way of putting into letters and newspapers articles of fashion, knick-knacks and mementoes from the old world. The mails are also used for intentional smuggling, but it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between smuggling and legitimate importations.

Diamonds, watches, and precious stones and jewelry of all kinds are intercepted by Mr. J. M. Wilson, of the postoffice bureau. Not long ago a package which was directed to a Maiden Lane diamond dealer was found to contain several thousand dollars' worth of uncut diamonds. He put $800 duties on them. Hundreds of packages containing cat's-eyes, rubies, cameos, intaglios, emeralds, and sapphires sufficient to stock a good-sized jewelry store are constantly received.

"Laces, kid gloves, silk stockings silk handkerchiefs, and other light articles are enclosed in newspapers and pamphlets. They are enclosed so that it is hard to detect them. A pair of silver sardine tongs going to California was recently found hidden in a package of pamphlets.

In an English newspaper were discovered ladies' silk stockings, one black and one red. According to the revenue law these might be taken as samples and entered free. A trick was suspected and the articles were detained. The next steamer's mail contained a newspaper addressed to the same person. In it were folded one red and one black silk stocking to match the others. The lady to whom they were addressed lived on Murray Hill. She was sent for, and paid the duty.

The genial official also told the Journal reporter that old bibles and books were used to send watches and other jewelry, the leaves being cut out and spaces hollowed out and used to hold the smuggled articles. One book arranged in this way disclosed, on being opened, three gold bracelets, two watch chains, two lockets, a set of sleeve-buttons, five gold pins, and two necklaces. This collection was on its way to a lady in Cincinnati. It was appraised at $334.

One mail will bring the first part of a book and the next mail the rest of it, but this trick for getting books in free is rarely successful, and many authors, clergymen, and other professional men have come to grief in their efforts to secure valued volumes at a slight cost.

About the holidays the mails are heavily burdened with dutiable goods. The advantages of putting goods through the postoffice over the regular way of importing is that no brokerage warehouse, cartage, or entry fees are required.