from the crowd, and who were anxiously
threading the confused maze of passengers'
effects strewed on the floor, to find their own.
A third was criticising, with an easy air, a
couple of lace collars belonging to the Cantab's
sister. The scene was made complete by two
or three porters, whose deliberate mode of
opening carpet-bags boxes and trunks, showed
that it was not their fate to be hurried in
their passage through this life.

You were wrong, Swallow, in venting so
much indignation when the search of Mrs.
Siddons's largest box was in progress. What
was the use of talking about "prying impertinence"
to the man who would insist upon
untying the strings of both the lady's new
bonnets, to see that they were not lined with
kid gloves or stuffed inside with perfumery
or cambric handkerchiefs or silk dresses?
Why threaten to report him for routing, and
crushing, and creasing her cherished collection
of collars and cuffs? And did you think
it possible to reach the soul of a Custom
House searcher, by accusing that gentleman
of "infamous tyranny" when, despite your
protégée's entreaties (which, I admit, melted
into tears; and in them I find your excuse), he
insisted upon seizing and confiscating two
packs of soiled French playing-cards, which
the importer had, she said, been specially
commissioned to bring over for her mother,
whose only recreation left in the world was
whist, and whose infirmities prevented her
from using the thick cards manufactured
here? He could not help it. Having seen
the porter look over the pack, card by card,
and find no stamp upon them (except the
mark of his own dirty thumb, which he had
wetted for the performance of his duty)—
being unable to perceive the accrediting ace
of spades, what could he do? He must show
his employers that he searched some of the
packages.

No, Swallow, you wasted both breath and
temper. It was when the same person
contented himself with thrusting his arm
halfway down one side of Mrs. Siddons's
carpetbag, and "passing" it instanter, that you
ought to have reproved him. Why were the
contents of that lady's box turned topsy-turvy,
and the bag left unexamined? If a discretion
be allowed to subordinate officers, should it
not be rationally exercised? Why did this
man confiscate a paltry pack of cards, which
the owner had a great wish to retain, and
allow her the chance of defrauding the
revenue to some considerable extent, by
shutting his eyes to the insides of a carpetbag
and a huge reticule? If no discretion
be vested in these executives, and it be
the law that the contents of all baggage be
examined, why is it not all examined? I do
not for one moment doubt the high respectability
of Mrs. Siddons; who never, probably,
had a contraband idea even in her dreams;
but it is not utterly impossible that when,
through your agency, I conveyed her reticule
ashore, she may have converted me into a
smuggler in spite of myself. If it be the duty
of the department to make an efficient search,
why is not each article in each box, bag,
portmanteau, trunk, and case thoroughly
scrutinised, and tested, and tasted, and,
if chargeable,properly assessed?

Why? I 'll tell you, Swallow;—because in
this era of railways, and steam-boats, and
journeys to Paris in one day, and voyages to
New York and back in a month: in these
times, when an enormous glass palace can be
built in seven months, and messages are daily
delivered and answered by electric telegraph
from one end of the island to the other in
seven minutes, the public won't wait! Listen,
Mr. Swallow, to the clamour that is still
going on outside, on the stairs we have just
left; do you think, if each of the five officials did
his duty rigidly, and examined every article
minutely, that, somewhere about half-past ten
or eleven at night, the door of the Baggage
Warehouse would not be battered down by an
injured and impatient public! Denounce the
system as much as a gentleman dare deal in
denunciation, in the article you threaten to
publish in the "Warrior for Peace," but, pray,
do not pour the vials of your inky wrath upon
the unhappy five whom the Commissioners of
the Customs set to do the work of a dozen;
and who dawdle over their duty, perhaps, out
of a hopeless despair of doing it even passably.
Why blame these men for the incompetency
of their superiors; who, if they have brains
to organise, have not industry to carry out
one of a half-dozen plans that a child would
invent for the quick despatch of passengers'
luggage? Could not an efficient staff of
searchers board the steamer at Gravesend,
and examine the packages on the voyage
thence? Could not an officer be stationed, on
the vessel arriving, at each of three or four
gangways—instead of one officer at one
gangway—and allow no personal luggage to be
landed which did not display the Custom
House seal? Or, failing this, could not the two
tide-waiters who already embark, and whose
hard fate it is to pace the deck in pleasant
converse during the up-Thames voyage, be
set to arrange the list of passengers' names
handed to him by the captain, in alphabetical
order? Then, could not the warehouse at
the wharf be divided off in compartments
(from "A to D;" from "E to K;" and so
on throughout the whole alphabet), like the
Dividend Office at the Bank of England, like
all the Railway Stations in France, and as is
done at the Great Western Railway at
Paddington? Could not each passenger walk
straight to the place of his initials—having
faith in the wharfingers that his property
will have been sorted into its proper station—
and there expose it to the scrutineers, and
have done with it? Or does a system of
corresponding numbers—one set for luggage,
and the other for passengers—demand too
high an effort of contrivance for Custom