A crew of fishermen were summoned to show cause why they should not, according to law, pay the treble value of a floating keg of gin, which, having bumped against their boat at sea, they had stretched out their hands to appropriate. There was no use in denying the act, as it had been witnessed by two keen eyes through unimpeachable glasses, from a headland. All that the fishermen could do was to swear that they only meant to deliver over the spirits to the Custom-house officers, and were prevented from doing so by being arrested immediately on landing. The magistrates considered this a very doubtful case; and, having before their eyes the fear of the collective power of their smuggling neighbours, gave their decision in favour of the fishermen; whereat the informers were indignant, and the folks in waiting exulted. All parties had by this time had enough of this ceremony; but the justices agreed in assuring the Lieutenant, that if they chose to look strictly into the proceedings of their neighbours, and to inflict all the punishments ordained in the statute for all the modes of offence specified therein, they might be constantly occupied from morning till night; the gaols would be filled; there would be a distraint for penalties in almost every cottage, and offenders would be nearly as common as persons who stood above five feet in their shoes. They entertained him with a sight of the entire statute, as he was not acquainted with the whole; and all thought it perfectly consistent with their exemplary loyalty to decide that it was truly an extraordinary specimen of legislation. The justices could no more boast of the achievements of their authority in putting down smuggling than the officer of his efficiency in preventing it. All shook their heads, complimented each other's exertions, and desponded about the availableness of their own. "What is to be done?" was the commonplace query which ensued. "Why, you see," said one of the justices, "the prohibiting a commodity does not take away the taste for it; and if you impose a high duty, you only excite people to evade it, and to calculate the average rate of the risk of detection. That being done, there will always be abundance of speculators found to make the venture, and no lack of customers to bid them God speed." "Then there are two ways of demolishing the practice,--lowering the duties, so as to remove the temptation to smuggling; and increasing the difficulty of carrying on a contraband trade." "I should say there is but one," replied the first speaker. "Difficulties have been multiplied till we who have to administer the law groan under them, and smuggling is still on the increase." "What is government about all the time?" asked the Lieutenant. "They must know this, and yet they let their own power be mocked, and the interests of our manufacturers and commercial men be sacrificed."