The Daily News of Tuesday has an instructive, and on
the whole reassuring, article on the tricks of the modern smuggler. The Customs House searching at Charing Cross or Victoria is not nearly so rigorous as it used to be, partly because there are fewer things to declare—though some travellers, at once ignorant and guileful, take precautions to smuggle articles on which there is no longer any duty—partly because of the subsidence of the dynamite scare, and lastly because travellers are more honest, or less sanguine of eluding the collectors. Sensational " finds " are now rare, though recently some tobacco was discovered in a monkey's cage, and sundry contraband goods in a case labelled and actually containing snakes. Two amusing facts are noted, one on the authority of an experienced Customs officer, who gave it as his opinion that " the parsons were by far the most troublesome and un- pleasant to deal with. They seemed to think that because they were parsons they ought to be taken on trust, and their luggage ought not to be searched." The other relates to the different attitudes of men and women when " caught out." The former usually have the grace to look ashamed; the latter " as a rule regard the exposure as a personal grievance," and treat the officer as if he were the real offender.
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