“Not much. A person can not get much through openly in a trunk that can affect the revenues or injure honest importers. The chief thing we need to prevent is passing goods intended for selling. This sort of fraud is usually attempted by deception, and we are pretty sure to detect it, either by the nervousness or appearance of the person, by the looks of the baggage, or by having been forewarned by detectives abroad, on shipboard or here. We get a moiety share of the forfeiture and fine, if we detect such attempts, and this is so large a sum that our interests are mostly with the government.” We will learn more about smuggling. False bottoms and secret pockets in trunks are an old device for hiding things; but the man who first secreted diamonds in his boot heel originated something. Secreting about the person is the ruse oftenest used, and, women’s costumes affording the best resources for this purpose, women are the most frequent smugglers. Some of them—reputable women, too—take quite superfluous pains and make themselves look needlessly ridiculous by loading their persons with apparel that no one would question if in their trunks, and no one does on their persons, except to smile at the self-exposure. On a hot July day I saw elegant appearing ladies in the barge office, sweating under enormous fur cloaks that made them look like Arctic explorers. This foible is neatly satirized in “Nothing to Wear,” in which is described the enormously stout appearance of _Miss Flora McFlimsy_ upon landing. One day the inspector witnessed a woman waddling down the gang plank with the body of a two hundred pounder and the face and head of a skinny, ninety-five pounder. Of course she was invited to the examination room by the female inspector, where the peripatetic ladies’ furnishing store was opened up and duty demanded on the whole outfit. The same things in a trunk would probably have gone through, most of them. Here the open and honest course were the wisest. Laces, silks, and linens are wound around the body and limbs, or made up into extra and superfluous skirts. Coiffeurs are made to serve as bustles; extra gold watches and jewelry are hung to the inside of skirts, and a dozen other devices are the suggestion of lovely and ingenious woman.