From te " Hoxcxoxc Dainty Press."
Curios and Oriental wares were found among various dealers on. sale at prices which made it seem clear that they had been smuggled into the country.
The Indrawadi, which left Kobe on the 3rd April, arrived at New York on the 26th June. On the following morning she went up to her East River pier and soon afterwards Captain Collington, her master, appeared at the Custom House. After going through the formality of entering his vessel he was summoned before the Collector, who, after looking carefully over the manifest, asked the Captain if the document contained everything that the vessel had brought in the way of cargo. The Captain expressed surprise at the unusual query, but did not hesitate to say that the manifest was unimpeachable.
""At once after the Captain's departure Special Treasury Agents Cooley and O'Neil were directed to search the Indrawadi from keel to truck. They did. Every compartment and hold, every state-room and store-room was 6xplored, but not a dutiable article wat found except what the manifest had duly acknowledged. Determined to leave no hiding place overlooked, the agents removed man-holes, plates, ote. and descended into the bunkers. Engine-room and stokehole were next invaded to no purpose.
"Deciding upon making another search of the crew's quarters, they came upon bulkhead which excited their suspicion No one seemed to. know what the bulkhead was doing there or what was behind it. A crowbar was brought, a plank ripped off, and the search was at an end.
"Behind the false bulkhead was a compartment packed with smuggled articles amounting im value to about $8,000, according to the estimate by the appraisers. There were forty-two cases containing Chinese and Japanese curios, three sets of magnificent screens richly embroidered and fined inside with heavy China silk; four boxes of ostrich feathers, and a score of other cases containing laces, handkerchiefs, and carvings in ivory and wood.
double truck was obtained, the entire bulkhead ripped away and its contents sent under guard to the seizure room, "Near the bulkhead was the carpenter's room, and therein a tool chest which the agents had cursorily inspected but which they now thought warranted a more thorough search. It did. Beneath the tools were found more screens fitted with costly ebony frames. These were added to the truck load.
"Captain Collington expressed amazement that anyone on board his vessel should be engaged in smuggling. Ho denied all knowledge of the false bulkhead, and none of the crew would admit ownership to any of the articles which had been secreted. 'The carpenter was not on board at the time of the seizure.'
One of the most important seizures by Customs jeffieers at New York was made on the 27th June, when searchers for smuggle-d goods found a false bulkhead in the forward part of the. Indra Line steamship Indrewadi and the space packed with costly curios, richly embroidered sereans, vases, carvings in ivory and woetl, feathers, silks, and laces.
For a long time, says the " New York Herald," the Treasury Department has had cause to suspect that smuggling on a extensive scale was being carried on by ships arriving from the Far East.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.