Folkestone is still a fishing port, though the industry is not what it used to be. In recent years there has been a revival of those ancient medieval ceremonies of blessing the sea and thanksgiving for the harvest of the sea which were anciently so common. In the latter years of the eighteenth and the first four decades of the nineteenth centuries, however, smuggling was with many of the fisherfolk a much more popular means of obtaining a livelihood than fishing. The whole of the outer portion of the town was honeycombed with cellars, secret passages, and “tub holes,” in which the contraband goods were stored until they could be finally and profitably disposed of. The nearness of Folkestone to the French coast made frequent trips across possible, and the smugglers were doubtless favoured by the laxity which was said to prevail amongst the coastguards on the Kentish and Sussex coast at the period when smuggling was at its height. For some years previous to 1831 a blockade of the coast had been instituted, and for a time smuggling was “under a cloud”; but on the removal of the blockade in 1830 there was a great revival, in the Deal, Walmer, and Folkestone districts especially. Many flagrant cases of connivance occurred in the two years immediately following the removal of the blockade, and numbers of men were dismissed from the preventive service. That the bribes given by the smugglers and their agents were substantial was, of course, natural, seeing that the rewards for seizures were so high. We are told in several records[A] that as much as a thousand pounds was not infrequently shared amongst the officers and men of a coastguard station after the capture of a big cargo, the lowest share, that of the boatmen, being some £85 to £90. Little wonder need be experienced then when it is stated that “many a sentry on night duty could reckon on seeing £40 by keeping his eyes shut.” A way of expressing the case of a truly Hibernian character. Women confederates of the smugglers were frequently employed to corrupt the men of the preventive service, and so common a practice had this become that a special order was issued along the Sussex and Kent coasts which is substantially as follows: “Having reason to believe and fear that an attempt will be made to corrupt our men through the medium of females, it is ordered that patrols hold no communication when on duty with any person, either male or female.” [A] _Smuggling Days and Smuggling Ways_, by the Hon. H. N. Shore, R.N.