visible, and their white colour made them difficult to be seen among the little waves.  But as soon as they came to the spot where there were only seven feet of water the two grapnels came into action and held the tubs moored like a ship.  And as the tide rose, so it completely obliterated them.  Some one was of course on the look-out for his spirits, and when the tide had dropped it was easy enough to wade out and bring the tubs ashore, or else “sweep” them ashore with a long rope that dragged along the bottom of the harbour.

During the year 1834 smuggling was again on the increase, especially on the south and east coasts, and it took time for the officers to learn all these new-fangled tricks which were so frequently employed.  Scarcely had the intricacies of one device been learnt than the smugglers had given up that idea and taken to something more ingenious still.  Some time back we called attention to the way in which the Deal boatmen used to walk ashore with smuggled tea.  About the year 1834 a popular method of smuggling tea, lace, and such convenient goods was to wear a waistcoat or stays which contained eighteen rows well stuffed with 8 lbs. weight of tea.  The same man would also wear a pair of drawers made of stout cotton secured with strong drawing strings and stuffed with about 16 lbs. of tea.  Two men were captured with nine parcels of lace secreted about their bodies, a favourite place being to wind it round the shins.  Attempts were also made to smuggle spun or roll tobacco from New York by concealing them in barrels of pitch, rosin, bales of cotton, and so on.  In the case of a ship named the Josephine, from New York, the Revenue officers found in one barrel of pitch an inner package containing about 100 lbs. of manufactured tobacco.

[Illustration:  The Smack Tam O’Shanter showing Method of Concealment (see Text).]

The accompanying plan of the smack Tam O’Shanter (belonging to Plymouth), which was seized by the Padstow Coastguard, will show how spirits were sometimes concealed.  This was a vessel of 72 tons with a fore bulkhead and a false bulkhead some distance aft of that.  This intervening space, as will be seen, was filled up with barrels.  Her hold was filled with a cargo of coals, and then aft of this came the cabin with berths on either side, as shown.  But under these berths were concealments for stowing quite a number of tubs, as already explained.

A variation of the plan, previously mentioned, for smuggling by means of concealments in casks was that which was favoured by foreign ships which traded between the Continent and the north-east coasts of England and Scotland.  In this case the casks which held the supplies of drinking water were fitted with false sides and false ends.  The inner casks thus held the fresh water, but the outer casks were full of spirits.  After the introduction of steam, one of the first if not the very first instance of steamship smuggling by concealment was that occurring in 1836, when a vessel was found to have had her paddle-boxes so lined that they could carry quite a large quantity of tobacco and other goods.