t the hoary
waterside ruffian, who, whispering low,--or at least as low as a throat
rendered husky by much gin _can_ whisper,--intimates that he can put the
"Captain" (he'd promote you to be "Admiral" on the spot if he thought
that thereby he might flatter you into buying) on to the "lay" of some
cigars--"smuggled," he breathes from behind a black and horny paw, whose
condition alone would taint the finest Havanna that ever graced the lips
of king or duke--the like of which may be found in no tobacconist's
establishment in the United Kingdom. There have been young men, greatly
daring, who have been known to traffic with this hoary ruffian, and who
have lived to be sadder and wiser men. Of the flavour of those weeds the
writer cannot speak, but the reek is as the reek which belches from the
Pit of Tophet. However, in the eighteenth century our forefathers, for a
variety of reasons, greatly preferred the smuggled goods, and many a
squire or wealthy landowner, many a magistrate even, found it by no
means to his disadvantage if on occasion he should be a little blind; a
still tongue might not unlikely be rewarded by the mysterious arrival of
an anker of good French brandy, or by something in the silk, or lace, or
tea line for the ladies of his household. People saw no harm in such
doings in those good old days; defrauding the revenue was fair game. And
if a "gauger" lost his life in some one or other of the bloody
encounters that frequently took place between the smugglers and the
revenue officers, why, so much the worse for the "gauger." He was an
unnecessarily officious sort of a person, who had better have kept out
of the way. In fact, popular sentiment was entirely with the smugglers,
who by the bulk of the population were regarded with the greatest
admiration. Smuggling, indeed, was so much a recognised trade or
profession that there was actually a fixed rate at which smuggled goods
were conveyed from place to place; for instance, for tea or tobacco from
the Solway to Edinburgh the tariff was fifteen shillings per box or
bale. A man, therefore, owning three or four horses could, with luck,
make a very tidy profit on the carriage, for each horse would carry two
packages, and the distances were not great. There was certainly a good
sporting chance of the convoy being captured in transit, but the
smugglers were daring, determined men, and the possibility of a brush
with the preventive officers merely added zest to the affai