Smuggled cigars are to-day a mere commonplace of the ordinary custom-house officer’s experience with private travellers, and no doubt a great quantity find a secret passage through, in the trading way. For some years there was a considerable import of broomsticks into England from the Continent, and little or no comment was made upon the curious fact of it being worth while to import so inexpensive an article, which could equally well be made here. But the mystery was suddenly dispelled one day when two clerks in a customs warehouse, wearied of a dull afternoon, set to the amusement of playing single-stick with two of these imported broomsticks. No sooner did one broomstick smite upon another in this friendly encounter than they both broke in half, liberating a plentiful shower of very excellent cigars, which had been secreted in the hollowed staves. Silks formed an important item in the smugglers’ trade, and even the gentlemen of that day unconsciously contributed to it, by the use of bandana handkerchiefs, greatly affected by that snuff-taking generation. Huskisson, a thoroughgoing advocate of Free Trade, was addressing the House of Commons on one occasion and declaring that the only possible way to stop smuggling was to abolish, or at any rate to greatly reduce, the duties; when he dramatically instanced the evasions and floutings of the laws. “Honourable members of this House are well aware that bandana handkerchiefs are prohibited by law, and yet,” he continued, drawing one from his pocket, while the House laughed loud with delight, “I have no doubt there is hardly a gentleman here who has not got a bandana handkerchief.” Lace-smuggling, of course, exercised great fascination for the ladies, who—women being generally lacking in the moral sense, or possessing it only in the partial and perverted manner in which it is owned by infants—very rarely could resist the temptation to secrete some on their way home from foreign parts. The story is told how a lady who had a smuggled lace veil of great value in her possession grew very nervous of being able to carry it through, and imparted her anxiety to a gentleman at the hotel dinner. He offered to take charge of it, as, being a bachelor, no one was in the least likely to suspect him of secreting such an article. But, in the very act of accepting his offer, she chanced to observe a saturnine smile spreading over the countenance of the waiter at her elbow. She instantly suspected a spy, and secretly altered her plans, causing the veil to be sewn up in the back of her husband’s waistcoat. The precaution proved to be a necessary one, for the luggage of the unfortunate bachelor was mercilessly overhauled at every customs station on the remainder of the journey.