Smuggling
originally and strictly a crime of commerce, a violation of customs laws, to be distinguished from such a crime of manufacture as illicit distillation, which violates excise laws. But the term is commonly applied also to the evasive manufacture and disposal of commodities liable to excise as well as to the clandestine importation of articles on which customs duties have been imposed.
Defrauding the government of revenue by the evasion of customs duties or excise taxes may therefore serve as a definition.
SMUTS Solway were long demoralized by unwise tariffs on articles of import from abroad.
The contrabandista used to be one of the most popular characters in Spain.
The exports from England to Gibraltar, to refer only to one of his lines of activity, used to be large, and were introduced by smugglers to the interior of Spain.
The injudicious tariffs which used to be imposed by both England and France en couraged smuggling to an enormous extent on both sides of the English Channel; spirits, especially brandy, tea, tobacco, silk goods from France; from England the most important article of illicit trade was cotton twist. English goods were introduced into France chiefly by the Belgian frontier, and dogs were trained to convey them; a dog would convey goods worth from $100 to $250. A great historical outburst of smuggling was the answer which commercial enterprise gave to Napoleon's Berlin and Milan decrees. Silk from Italy reached England by Smyrna after being a year on passage, by Archangel after being two years. Cotton twist, coffee, sugar, tobacco, were shipped from England to Salonica, conveyed thence by mules and horses through Servia and Hungary to Vienna, and distributed over the Continent from that capital. Coffee from London would reach Calais by Vienna.