The Koreans engaged in this! smuggling business seem to" belong to a well organized gang, they, travel in large groups and for some lunaecountable reason, meet with Uttle or, no opposition on the part Jof the Chinese authorities, and even the Customs officials seem afraid of tackling hoste smugglers. The duty of the railway officials is only to assist the Customs inspectors to [check the activities of the smugglers. tsin for Shanhaikuan, especially the! expresses. They travel with special ly made. belts in which the silver dollars are placed, and as the ma-Jority of them dress in Chinese long gowns, it is dimeult to detect a smuggler from an ordinary corpulfent and well-to-do Chinese. They also secret the silver in suitcases hidden "under the seats, and a particularly clever way of evading the notice of: the Japanese police in-[spectors—Koreang "are subject _to Japanese law and free from pro-Jsecution by Chinese law—they hide themselves. in. the lavatories of the trains while the train ig remaining stationary at the East Station, but the Japanese police inspectors "have now tumbled to this little trick.
The smuggling of artificial sill into Tientsin from Chinwangtao is as prevalent as the outward. smugigling of silver dollars to Shanbaikuan. Again Koreans are the principal offenders, in fact, so far, I have not heard of any Chinese being caught in Tientsin smuggling artife lal silk from Chinwangtao, "The Smugglers' Spectal"
'The silk smugglers must have good) connections with the Native junks which ply along the Hopei coast which are generally used to convey' smuggled goods to the shore. On September 5, the train which arrives Jat the East Station at about two C'clock—which by the way seems to foe a favourite with the smugglers, so much so that it might suitably' be named "The Smugglers Special"—trom Chinwangiao, brought and landed on the railway platform 52 pales of artificial silk. while during the early part of the week one train alone brought no less than 232 bales. 'The weight of each bale was about 100 1b. and as if adding insult to Injury, the goods not only reached their' destination minus Customs
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.