Now you and your baggage are taken off the steamer and transported on barges to the barge office at the Battery. Here the scene is as animated, if not as picturesque, as at Castle Garden, described in the October CHAUTAUQUAN. A large rotunda is piled with long tiers of trunks, boxes and parcels, each ranged under a placard bearing the letter which is the initial of the owner’s name—so that it is easy for you to find yours, unless you are as uncertain as to the orthography of your name as Tony Weller was. A blue-clad, brass-badged inspector, holding your sworn statement in his hand, demands the keys to your trunks. The manner in which you comply will have much to do with the rigor of his investigation, as will your general appearance and make-up. These officials become as good judges of character by externals as do railroad conductors. One of the latter once said to me: “I can pick out all the fresh passengers in a coach as soon as I open the door, by the way they sit, look, and breathe. If they try to deceive, their faces will betray them; they look too unconcerned and innocent. If they feign sleep they overdo it; their attitudes betray them.” So an inspector here says that people’s words, movements, dress, all tell of them. I can tell the incoming traveler an open secret. Uncle Sam is extremely liberal in the matter of baggage inspection. You would be surprised, sir or madam, at the things the inspector don’t see, if you simply throw yourself on the government’s generosity and act as if you expected to be liberally dealt with. You have only to remember that your foot is on your native heath, and you are an American citizen, one of the sovereigns. An inspector said: “This property is personal effects, and public sentiment is very sensitive as to domiciliary inspection and invasion of private sanctity. The inspector is given wide latitude of judgment; he must have it. By law, every pair of kid gloves that has not been worn is dutiable, but we began to allow a lady a few extra pairs, and finally the limit was set at a dozen. Although that is liberal, we find that plenty of ladies have more pairs in use; and if her appearance, dress, and the other contents of the trunks justify it, we pass as many as we fancy a lady in her station _might_ possess. So of dresses, laces, fans, fancy articles, et cetera. Even piece goods not cut or sewed are under certain conditions ignored, if the owner declares they are for her own necessary use. So of cigars. Our rule is to pass a hundred duty free; but we don’t always stop to count them, if the passenger looks like a man of means and character. What would the seizure amount to if there were ten or twenty, or even fifty over the arbitrary limit we have fixed? The government does not do such ‘picayune business.’” “Does not this leave the door open for smuggling?”