might conveniently be poured. What could possibly be more above-board and open than that? You might put your stick down from the top to the bottom, and waggle it in all directions; you might pour out of the top a little of the contents—oil; you might pour more out of the more convenient side spout—the same oil; you might even poke a stick or wire as far as you pleased down the little spout, and still it was all oil. But the smuggler's ways are dark. There was a tube leading from the little spout to the conical oil chamber in the middle—just as the diagram shows—and all round about was just about the same quantity of just about the same brandy! Truly, it would seem impossible to detect fraud in this. But the fraud was detected, and every customs officer knows of it. The smugglers are beaten, at any rate for the present. What more, though, can they possibly do with the oil tin?
Oil Tins.
Brandy has been smuggled in bladders, otherwise than in oil tins. More than once these bladders have been found among a woman's underclothing. Many of the hauls have been made at Dover, the smugglers landing from the Calais packet. The bladders are, as a rule, pretty trustworthy, though they have been known to leak with disastrous results. This was what brought a very elaborately dressed lady to grief a little time ago at Dover. She had kept very much to herself on the run over, and was thought to be rather unwell. Her only luggage, a small bag, was examined and passed, and she started off—rather hurriedly. This was nothing extraordinary, perhaps, in itself, but her gait was an odd one—she wobbled. Now many people wobble when they leave the Calais boat, and even this might have passed unheeded were it not for a very strong smell of brandy—something more than the smell of a mere flask—and a small liquid trail which marked the wobbling lady's path. Somebody went after that hapless lady, and she was, with a great deal of difficulty, prevailed upon—the trickling stream expatiating into a goodly puddle the while—to submit herself to the investigations of a female searcher. Then the cause of the seclusion, the haste, the wobble, the smell, and the puddle became obvious. Somewhere about twenty long bladders full of strong Cognac had been used to trim one of the unfortunate lady's petticoats, and one of these bladders had sprung a leak.
Women have often found their skirts and bodices useful aids to smuggling, and the reign of crinoline or dress improver is their opportunity. Indiarubber dress improvers distended with brandy, and petticoats quilted heavily with tobacco, are well-known plans for defeating the revenue officers. Again and again smugglers, male and female, are betrayed by attempting too much; and many a skirt full of cigars has been detected through the obvious weight of the burden, the different "set" it gave to the clothes, and the check it constituted to an easy gait.
The story of the Calais-Dover baby is pretty well known. It was always so unwell, poor little dear! and its face had to be kept heavily veiled from the cold wind. Notwithstanding this, it was always being carried back and forth between England and France by the interesting young mother: never cried, and never, somehow, grew out of long clothes. The Custom-house officers—married men themselves—didn't understand it. So that, next time, the most married man among them ventured to insist on being introduced to the interesting little creature. He had a difficulty in convincing the lady of his amiable intentions, and, indeed, had to use a little force before discovering that the baby was an entirely artificial sort of infant, chiefly tobacco, but largely lace. This sort of baby
