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parson was conducting a visiting bishop over his church, and led the distinguished cleric to the steeple in order to show him the condition of the roof. Imagine his amazement and confusion when he discovered the place piled high with casks of spirits and chests of tea!

Many a time, too, some farmer would open his barn doors of a morning to find the interior occupied by slumbering smugglers with their store of contraband about them, snatching a few hours' rest before seeking a safe hiding place for their goods. Even the churchyards were put into use by the smugglers, and many an ancient tomb has opened mysteriously and uncannily at dead of night to emit spirits of a very different nature from those usually accredited to the abode of the departed.

Indeed, the smugglers found cemeteries most useful spots for their purposes, and, to obviate any possibility of prying eyes observing their activities, fostered and encouraged hair-raising tales of ghosts and demons haunting the graveyards where they stored their goods. Often they went farther and varied the monotony of smuggling by playing ghosts themselves. At Hurstmonceux, near the ancient ruined castle, the people told with bated breaths of a terrifying apparition that had often been seen, and still more often heard, in the vicinity of the graveyard. According to these tales, it was the ghost of a drummer who had been killed years

before, and who, for some unexplained reason, being unable to rest quietly in his grave, paraded at midnight, a terrifying, luminous wraith in earth

stained, rotted. uniform, beating a ghostly drum. The incongruity of a spiritual drum emitting audible sounds never, seems to have occurred to them, and apparently no one questioned the genuineness of the ghost or possessed the curiosity and bravery to investigate or follow the restless spirit. But with the establishment of the coast guard station at Hurstmonceux, in 1831, the ghostly drummer vanished completely and forever, coincidently with the abandonment of the churchyard as a place of concealment by the smugglers.

Tolland churchyard, also, was reputed to be haunted, in this case by hilarious, rowdyish spirits who gleamed dully with phosphorescent light, and with blood-curdling chuckles and cries, chased any belated wayfarer who happened to approach the graveyard after nightfall. Old castles and crumbling manor-houses were also favorite quarters of the smugglers, who seem to have been far less superstitious than their fellow countrymen, and there is fully as much if not more truth than poetry in the lines:

"Oft from yon solemn and bat-haunted tower
The smugglers issue at the midnight hour."

Even when captured, the smugglers could sel

dom be convicted. On one occasion a party of smugglers, caught red-handed, were brought before the court, and overwhelming evidence was presented to prove their guilt. Nevertheless they were acquitted, were promptly tried a second time with a new jury, and as promptly acquitted the second time. And this was not because the citizens feared reprisals or vengeance if they lifted their hands against the smuggling fraternity, but because every man in the neighborhood of smuggling communities approved of the illicit trade. At Dover, when a party of smugglers were taken and lodged in jail, a mob of citizens gathered, demanded the release of the smugglers, and this being refused, battered down the prison, stoned the soldiers and the Mayor, and freeing the captives, drove triumphantly away with the smugglers in postchaises.

It was about this time that some ingenious member of the customs force hit upon the clever and remarkable expedient of training dogs to find contraband liquor that the smugglers had buried in earth or sand until such time as the goods could be disposed of. The dogs used were fox terriers and were raised from puppyhood on a diet liberally dosed with gin or brandy. As a result, they were stunted creatures possessing as great a desire for liquor as the most inveterate tippler, and would unerringly smell out and betray the concealed spirits of the smugglers. For some time the latter

could not understand how the excise officers discovered their hidden stores, but when they did, they very promptly and effectively put an end to the usefullness of the canine customs officers by mixing liquor with poison and placing it where the terriers could find it.

Very often, instead of secreting their contraband under ground, the smugglers resorted to the common practice of sinking casks of spirits in the sea and buoying them so they could be recovered when the proper time came. This was called "putting in the collar" and, if all went well, there was little danger of the submerged goods being found by the officials.* But if storms arose the casks were very liable to be washed ashore, and after every gale, the coast guards always searched the shores looking for this liquid jetsam. If the casks had not remained too long under water the contents would be in perfect condition, but more often than not, the salt water would have seeped through the containers and the former gin or brandy would have been transformed to a horrible mess that smelled to high heaven and was quite appropriately and descriptively known as "stinkibus." It is also of interest to note that the term "moonshine," which

*In a number of instances the smugglers' contraband was the means of saving themselves and their vessels from destruction. In terrific seas and gales, when even the stanch luggers and cutters could make no headway, the casks of liquor, strung along a line and heaved over the bows, served as a sea-anchor and enabled the craft to ride out the storm in safety.

BOSCASTLE COVE IN CORNWALL, ENGLAND Once a famous haunt of smugglers

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