tobacco. The man never came for his broomsticks, so that the story is deprived of what might have been an interesting sequel. An adaptation of the broomstick machination has also been employed with lead pencils containing bank-notes of doubtful manufacture, rolled up small. A man with a pocket-knife took it into his head to sharpen one of these, and so this well laid scheme went agley.
"Singlestick."
In the matter of the smuggling of spirits in fairly large quantities, a continual war of wits has been waged between the smugglers and the customs authorities—a war in which a chief feature has been the battle of the oil-drums. So far the authorities have won pretty handsomely. To begin with, the ordinary oil-drum of commerce was put into requisition. This carried just so much oil that when a long bladder full of spirits was introduced through the bung-hole, or before the drum was headed, it would quite fill up; then the official inquisitors might smell the oil or pour a little out, and be none the wiser. But the inquisitors developed an awkward habit of poking about down into the oil-can with sticks, and soon the fond illusion burst, and so did a good many of the bladders.
The bladders having been placed beyond the region of practical politics, refuge was taken in the time-honoured dodge of the double bottom. Very probably this served for a time until the smugglers' greediness exceeded reasonable bounds, and the grog-chamber became of the proportions shown in the diagram. It was not wise to expect to get many such things as that past a moderately smart Custom-house officer, and a dip with a stick soon settled matters. The pattern early went out of fashion.
The next attack was especially designed to baffle the poking stick. Again the tin was perfectly innocent and normal as to external appearances—all such articles are so, of course. An ordinary oil tin, from the outside, guile and cunning lurked within in the shape of a perpendicular oil chamber, of parallel diameter down to an inch or two from the mouth of the vessel, and thence gradually enlarging, cone fashion, to a base of eight inches. Now, this bottom diameter of eight inches was so carefully proportioned to the width and length of the parallel entrance above that the exploratory stick might, while reaching the very bottom, twist and wag about in any direction without touching a side of the chamber, and, of course, always dived into nothing but oil. In the extensive region round about this cone, however, and occupying much the greater part of the whole interior, the liquid was not oil, but brandy. This was pretty ingenious, and perhaps for a time fairly successful, but the customs men were equal to the occasion, and the cone chamber is no longer an effective dodge.
It would seem difficult to devise an improvement on it, but still it was done. The can was made with just the same guiltless exterior, though still with the unholy conical oil chamber inside. But its honest and straightforward character was still further testified by a small spout in the top of the vessel, near the very edge, right away from any possible central chamber, and out of which the contents, or a little of them,
