CHAPTER IV.

SOME ANECDOTES OF SMUGGLERS AND SMUGGLING.

As an inducement to seize contraband, Government pays its preventive staff money-rewards which bear a ratio to the value of the stuff seized, and the ability displayed in seizing it; and an officer who is active and conscientious very often can earn in this way from three to four times the amount of his monthly salary. But the seizing of contraband is by no means easy, as the smuggler has brought concealment to a fine art, and there seems to be no end to the ingenuity which may be exercised by him in getting his consignments through safely to their destination. A few examples will serve to demonstrate this.

Vigorous search had failed to bring to light the cocaine which was reported to be on board the S.S. “_Contrebandier_” from Marseilles, and the search party were about to reluctantly abandon their quest when attention was directed to a pile of bundles of planks, each bundle consisting of from four to six half-inch planks, bound together at each end with iron bands. More from curiosity than with any idea of discovering cocaine, one of these bundles was pulled apart. The top plank was found to be intact, and so was the bottom one, but the intervening planks had had spaces cut through them which were packed with one-ounce packets of cocaine. A large quantity of the alkaloid, valued at several thousands of rupees, was found. An illustration to make the method clear is shown.

Another example: The weekly steamer from India had come into a Burma port, and the deck-passengers had been lined up on the pier for inspection by the Customs officers. An excise officer on the pier was made curious by four natives of India, whose only effects consisted of earthen pots of water containing small fishes. Knowing that the place to which these men had come abounded with fish of the best kinds, he was not convinced when they explained that they had brought these small fry to stock the local tanks with. A closer scrutiny disclosed the fact that whereas by percolation the outsides of the pots ought to have been wet, these were quite dry. Measurements taken with his walking stick inside a pot and outside it disagreed too greatly to leave any doubt of the existence of a false bottom, and on breaking a pot, he found that it not only had a false bottom, but that the inter-space was packed with segments of opium. The remaining pots, needless to say, were treated in the same way, and a rich haul was made. An illustration of this method, also, is given. Considering there was no seam, the workmanship of these pots was uncommonly clever.

There are doubtless hundreds of other methods as yet undiscovered by which smugglers get their goods through safely. There is the heavy wooden bedstead, whose every leg is hollowed out to receive stuff, whose frame is but a shell to receive morphia phials. It is likely that the Chinaman who walks in front of you wearing a pith hat has cut-out spaces under the padded cover, in the pith, which are occupied by segments of opium; there is the Holy Bible that comes by post, with a square cut in the pages, containing opium or some other drug. The ways in which concealment is practised are legion. The wonder is that so many of these tricks are discovered!

But there are a number of cases in which the methods come to light only after the coup has been completed. A European, Hobson by name, ostensibly a coffee planter, whose plantation was on the frontier which separates an opium-producing country from British India, took to smuggling opium down to city smugglers, and in time accumulated great wealth. His methods were simple, but on one occasion a consignment he had sent down in charge of an assistant of his very nearly fell into the hands of the authorities, and he became more cautious. On one occasion after this, he ordered a consignment of fifty one-pound tins of tea from an oilmanstore merchant in the city, and on its arrival, took delivery. Next day, the same package was returned by rail to the address of the grocer. On arrival of the package in the city, a European, purporting to be an assistant of the grocer firm, called at the railway booking office, and producing the railway receipt, took delivery of the case; the grocer being duly paid, never knew that the package had ever been returned to his address. The explanation is that Mr. Hobson had emptied the tea tins when he got them, refilled them with opium, and sent them back; but the railway receipt was sent to his assistant who, on arrival of the package, took delivery of it, and handed it over to the local smuggler in exchange for hard cash!

How this same Mr. Hobson once played a trick on a prominent detective will bear relating, even as inadequately as I am able to do it. Hobson was once travelling down to the city by train, when our sleuth, who happened to be on tour, entered the same compartment at a small wayside station. Having already seen Mr. Hobson’s descriptive roll, he had no difficulty in identifying him as the smuggler whom he had often dreamt about catching; and having the strongest reason to believe that H could not possibly know who _he_ was, introduced himself as Mr. Jackson, travelling for a firm of leather merchants. The two got into conversation, and our sleuth, being an adept in the art of worming out details of other people’s affairs, soon got Hobson to open his heart to him. Facts and figures were eagerly noted whenever Hobson was not observant of it, and our sleuth was very pleased indeed with himself. Next morning, however, as he parted from his late companion at the city railway station, Hobson said, “Good-bye, Mr. ——” addressing him by his real name, “I am very pleased indeed to have made your acquaintance. Here,” producing it from his pocket book, “is your latest photograph! Let me advise you to represent anything but leather another time. You don’t know a thing about it.” And then, as an afterthought, “Better tear up those notes you took. I’ve told you nothing that isn’t a damned lie!”

An Indian smuggler once took a rise out of a certain high police official, whom I shall call Duncan, and thereby made a mortal enemy for life. F. was the chief smuggler in this city, and his transactions in illicit drugs ran into lakhs of rupees. It was most desirable that this prince of smugglers should be brought to book. He was also by way of being a desperate character; for although it could not be proved, it was morally certain that more than one of the mysterious murders that had taken place in recent years had been committed or instigated by him. One day Duncan got information that F. had a large quantity of drugs, arms, and ammunition in his house, and that if search were made at once, F. would, to a certainty, be caught red-handed. This was luck indeed, and Duncan decided to make the search personally. Collecting a party of constables, he set out at once, but meeting the Black Maria (prison van) on its way back to the prison from the Courts, a brilliant idea came to him, and halting this grim conveyance, he and his party entered it, giving instructions to the driver to stop opposite F.’s house. Arriving there, some of the party soon surrounded the house, while Duncan and the rest of them entered the place. F. was in his “Office,” to all appearances deeply immersed in piece-goods transactions.

“F.,” said Duncan, “I am going to search your house on information received. I believe you have contraband drugs, arms, and ammunition concealed somewhere on these premises, and I mean to find them. If you wish to search me and my party before we begin, do so at once.”

“I am a humble, law-abiding merchant, Sahib, and have no concern with drugs and firearms. You are quite at liberty to search anywhere you please.”

The search began. Duncan, although by no means a young man, worked with the rest. The place was ransacked from cellar to attic, but not a trace of what was sought was to be found. Duncan, covered from head to foot in grime and cob-web, at last reluctantly decided to give it up, and slowly descended the stairs to the lower room, where he was struck speechless with indignation. There was a table covered with the whitest of linen cloths, and groaning under an assortment of fruit and sweetmeats, crowned by a bottle of Pommery and Greno; while F., with a snowy towel over his arm, and a silver bowl of water in his hands, greeted Duncan with an invitation to wash and partake of refreshment “as your honour looks tired and dusty.”

“Damn you! I shall have you yet,” said the infuriated Duncan when he found his tongue; and strode out of the house with rage and hatred in his heart!

It was discovered later that F., in a mischievous mood, had himself forwarded the information on which Duncan acted!