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why they were taking so long. Neville offered some unintelligible explanation regarding currents and winds, but assured them he would put them ashore in a few minutes. And he kept his word to the letter. Running into a little cove, he saw his passengers disembark, and waited to see no Plain upon the sand were the imprints of the feet of many men leading inland. Even the excise officers could see that the smugglers had come and gone, and angrily they turned to berate Neville. But he was already well out from shore. Gaily waving his hand, he shouted farewell, and added, "I kept my promise. I put you 'after the smugglers,'-four hours after them!"

No doubt there were many more such fascinating smugglers as Dick-of-the-Downs, Peter Trent and the others. But their stories will fully serve as illustrations of the best of the Cornishmen, who made smuggling as honorable a profession as a dishonorable one can be made. And on the shores of Cornwall smuggling flourished long after it had ceased to exist to any extent elsewhere on Britain's coasts. Just when smuggling came to an end

*In the year 1819 the following vessels were listed as fitting out at Flushing for smuggling into English ports.

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At this same time 'there were over five-hundred known smugglers at Dunkirk alone.

in England is hard to say. Perhaps, indeed probably, it is still carried on to some extent, but the golden age of smuggling along the channel shores was over before the first quarter of the nineteenth century; the profession had become of little consequence by the middle of the century, although there is an official account of smugglers being taken on the British coasts in 1873. At midnight on the twenty-eighth of May of that year, coast guards near Southampton Water saw a strange craft put in toward shore and a small boat put off from her. From the latter, two men landed, bearing heavy sacks, and, plodding up the beach, entered a deserted hut. Suspecting something wrong was afoot, the watching guards arrested the two strangers, and finding the bags contained contraband, took possession of the smugglers' boat and rowed off to the lugger. Speechless with surprise at seeing two government officers appear on their decks instead of their shipmates, and realizing it was hopeless to resist or attempt to escape, the crew surrendered. The lugger, a vessel of fifteen tons burden proved a valuable prize, for in her hold were eighty-five bales of fine tobacco, six boxes of Cavendish, large quantities of expensive cigars and numerous casks and bottles of wines and spirits.

Of course, smuggling, in a small way, is still carried on in England as in any other land. This

is evident from the Customs Report of March 31 1891. According to this official statement, there were seized, during the preceding year, 16,756 pounds of contraband tobacco, and 239 gallons of spirits, resulting in 4,704 convictions and penalties yielding 8,126 pounds sterling, while in 1882 the seizures of tobacco totalled 25,653 pounds, and spirits 432 gallons with only 1,516 convictions and penalties amounting to 3,529 pounds sterling. Nearly all of these goods were seized near the River Humber. No doubt the luggers often bring in a few casks of spirits, a few packages of tea, a few cigars or a little tobacco from across the channel; but never again will—

"A beacon gleam on the clifftop edge
Where no light has ever been

And the smugglers lurk in their secret cove
As they flash the lugger in."

But though the last of the picturesque coastwise smugglers of England have vanished, though the trade as such has ceased to exist, still there are many relics and reminders of the rascals left. Many of the old churches in which they hid their contraband are still just as in the days of the "free traders." Many old houses still stand wherein one may see the secret hiding places of the smugglers. The Red Lion Inn, where Diamond and his cutthroat fellows murdered Galley and Chater, is still in existence, although it is now a cottage and no

longer an inn. The Whitehart Tavern, where Mrs. Payne betrayed Chater and Galley to her sons, may also be seen today. The crumbling remains of "honest Carter's" house at Prussia Cove are still visible. Goudhurst Church is much the same as it was on that day when the indignant citizen-militia fought the Hawkhurst gang and routed them, and there are other places closely identified with the old time smugglers' activities everywhere about the coasts of England. And I must not forget to mention the gravestones; aged, and gray and mosscovered, that, in many a weed-grown churchyard, mark the resting places of both smugglers and customs men who met death in forays twixt the free traders and the government officers.

From the quaint epitaphs on these one may often secure a very vivid impression of the events that took place, and a fairly accurate idea of the public's attitude, for and against smuggling, in those days. In a graveyard in Sussex, near Rye, is a stone bearing the following inscription:

"IN MEMORY OF JOHN MOON who was deprived of life bye a base man on 20 of June 1809 in the

28 year of his age."

We take it for granted that it was the deceased Moon and not the "base man" whose age was twenty-eight years, but we would rather like to know who the base man was. That he was a king's of

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From

SMUGGLERS DEFEATED BY DRAGOONS

a Mezzotint after the painting by Sir Francis Bourgeois

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