OBSERVATIONS ON SMUGGLERS AND SMUGGLING.
Taken all round, I think it must be admitted that the smuggler is a
sportsman, in the sense that he plays a hazardous game at great personal
risk, at the risk of his fortune, and against great odds. It is true
that he takes all the care he can to minimize risks, but he can never
hope entirely to eliminate the element of danger; and if his game be
divested of all its peccancy, and most of its immorality, we discover in
it the essentials of what goes to make horse-racing so popular a “sport”
all over the civilized world. What is it that attracts millions to a
race-course? Money! The desire to get money coupled with the excitement
of the game. Out of every thousand persons who go to a race-meeting,
nine hundred and ninety-nine go to gain money under feverishly exciting
conditions, and _one_ to see the horses run. Spanish bull-fighting
however it may please the Spaniard, can never be otherwise than
disgusting to an Englishman. But however shocked an Englishman might be
at the ruin the smuggler causes to thousands of his fellow-men, he can
never feel for the smuggler the contempt which he feels for the gaudy
and bespangled Toreador. He recognizes that the smuggler is playing a
dangerous game, sustained by the arts of a subtle intellect, and that he
also possesses the qualities which go to make a good fighter.
It may be that the smuggler has little notion of the havoc he spreads.
It may be that he argues thus: “There is a demand for drugs, and people
will be supplied by some means or other. They are willing to pay almost
any price for the drugs they want; they are grown up people and well able
to judge for themselves; why should I not make a fortune by supplying
them with their wants at my own price?” This is a form of reasoning which
contains no fallacy for a man unacquainted with the principles of ethics,
and it is certain that the smuggler has not burdened his mind with such
learning, admirable as it may be.
His offence against the revenue laws provides the smuggler with a
never-ending source of pure delight. Every fresh triumph in this
direction he looks upon as another feather in his already innumerably
be-feathered cap.
But there can be no question about the dreadful misery for which the
smuggler is directly responsible, and in succeeding chapters I shall
endeavour to give as realistic a picture as I can of the awful results of
this damnable traffic in drugs.
THE DRUG HABIT.