Contraband: A Tale of Modern Smugglers

The mail packet S.S. Glenbow, ploughing her way up the south-west coast of Newfoundland in a beam sea and half a gale of wind, rolled rail in rail out as she neared St. Lawrence.

Dare Stanley, who had been lying down in his berth, felt the necessity of fresh air, and slipping on an oilskin coat he made his way on deck. The air was fresh enough there in all conscience! He found all but the bridge deserted; the heavy sea made a stay on deck undesirable. Yet he did not wish to return to his cabin, having a desire for company of some sort, so, watching his chance, he fought his way aft to where the smoke-room was situated.

Short as was the trip, he was drenched and had the breath half knocked out of him before he could gain sanctuary. Once he reached the smoke-room he had to exert all his strength to open the door, which was pressed to as with a vice by the weight of the wind. He managed to get it open enough to slip inside, when the door closed precipitately behind him and knocked him half-way across the room.

He was helped to his feet by the chief engineer, who was seated at a card-table with the captain and two passengers. Three other passengers completed the company.

"Hello, young Stanley!" shouted the captain, who was a friend of Dare's father. "Bit rough outside, is it?"

Dare showed his teeth in a grin for answer, and stripped himself of his oilskins, while the company returned to consideration of the game his entry had interrupted. It was soon finished. The captain, who was partnered with one of the passengers, showed great good humour as he drew in his share of the winnings. Not so the chief, who had lost.

"There ye are," said that disgruntled individual as he paid out. "Man, dear, did ye ever see sich cards in all your born days! If my luck keeps bad I'll have to follow the lead of the fo'c'sle crew and play for tobacco."

This humorous sally was greeted by an appreciative guffaw.

"Speaking of tobacco," said one of the passengers during the conversational lull which followed, "I'm a living witness that the only way you can get rid of it on this coast is to give it away."

"That's so," agreed his companion. They were both, it seemed, representatives of tobacco firms. "And of all the places on the coast Saltern Bay is the worst."

"It's a crying shame!"

This topic in lieu of a better was seized upon as likely to yield something of interest.

"How's that, Mr. Parsons?" said the captain insinuatingly.

"Smuggling," answered Mr. Parsons tersely, and all the company, including Dare, pricked up their ears. For although this was a perennial subject of discussion, it never failed to rouse interest, for the simple reason that it touched nearly everyone's feelings or pockets, or both, in one way or another.

"Smuggling, sir," repeated Mr. Parsons. "Saltern Bay is a hotbed of smugglers. Mind you, I don't mind a man bringing in a little brandy or tobacco on the quiet free of duty, but when you get a gang of men organizing a regular supply of the stuff and thus undermining the legitimate trade of the country, then I say it's time to stop it."

"You're right," asserted his colleague. "If I had my way I'd blow St. Pierre Colony sky-high out of water. Why we were ever fools enough to give it back to the French when once we'd won it, I don't know. It's been nothing but a thorn in the side of the tobacco business ever since."

"Oh come, Mr. Bayley," protested the captain good-humouredly; "you wouldn't go so far as that surely. St. Pierre is all right. A jolly little town in its way."

"And as for giving it back to the French," put in the chief, "man, there were reasons for that, diplomatic reasons which take no account of individual likes or dislikes. The English had to smooth down the French a little at the time, and the cheapest way of doing it was to cede them St. Pierre and the rights of fishing on the so-called French coast, an injustice to the islanders if there ever was one."

"I'm with you there," put in a passenger who had hitherto remained silent, a merchant from Bay de Verde.

"Well, I'm not worrying about the fishing rights," said Mr. Parsons egoistically; "it's the tobacco rights I'm interested in."

"Of course," said the captain dryly.

"It's come to the time when the Government has got to take action or be for ever disgraced in the eyes of its electors," declared Mr. Parson's colleague somewhat grandiosely.

"Bad as that, is it?" said the captain, intent on drawing both men out.

"Worse," interpolated Mr. Parsons pessimistically. "Do you know the extent of my order for the district between Point Day and Barmitage Bay, captain? A measly five hundred dollars, on a route that ought to yield a three thousand dollar order every month."

"Umph!" The sympathetic articulation came from the chief, who had a just appreciation of figures as such. "Man, dear, the smugglers must be doing a roaring trade," he added, "for there's not a man on the coast that doesna' smoke or chew the weed."

"A true word," said Mr. Parsons sadly. "But what would you? Five out of ten of them do their own smuggling, and the rest are supplied by the smuggling gang. It's impossible to compete with their cutthroat prices."

"A gang, is there?" inquired the captain, who had been up and down the coast for twenty years and probably knew more about Mr. Parsons' subject of grievance than that worthy himself did.

"Of course there's a gang, captain. There must be. There's a regular underground trade."

"What are the Revenue people doing?" put in the merchant from Bay de Verde.

"Bah!" Mr. Parsons expectorated in disgust, then attacked the Service in earnest.

"What do they ever do," he declared, "but send a dinky little gunboat up and down the coast?--a boat that every smuggler recognizes twenty miles away and avoids accordingly. What they need to do is to place men on land, not ten miles off it. Saltern Bay is honeycombed with coves and beaches where the smugglers can land and no one the wiser. Have a few men spying up and down the land. Let them keep their eyes open and find out the smugglers' cache--then make a raid. A few raids and smuggling wouldn't be so brisk, for smugglers can no more afford to lose their goods than other people."

Mr. Parsons' colleague nodded in agreement.

"I seem to remember hearing that the Customs at Saltern attempted something of that kind," hazarded the captain.

"Bah!" said Mr. Parsons. "Old man Johnson, sixty if he's a day, made a daylight trip to 'Madam's Notch' and found half a case of brandy and a few pounds of tobacco. There's those who believe the smugglers placed it there on purpose. I'm one of them. There's others who say that Johnson will never be a poor man if he lives to be a hundred and that the smugglers have made his inactivity worth while. He ought to be kicked out."

"He has been." Dare could not resist the opportunity of being the conveyor of new and interesting information.

Mr. Parsons and his colleague turned surprised looks on their informant.

"What's that!" ejaculated Mr. Parsons incredulously.

"Didn't you know?" said the captain easily, saving Dare the trouble of repeating his statement. "Johnson resigned about three weeks ago. Captain Stanley, this young man's father, has been appointed in his place."

"News to me," confessed Mr. Parsons.

"We've been on the Northern route this past month," informed Mr. Bay ley in explanation.