Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 08.djvu/532

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SMOOT 468 SMUTS decided to leave England with his wife, and for two years made his home at Nice. After a tour of Italy he returned to Lon- don and published his "Travels." A visit to Scotland, where he was made much of in the then brilliant society of Edinburgh, and to Bath, improved his health for a time, and he produced in 1769 his coarse satire, "The History and Adventures of an Atom," dealing with politics in Eng- land during the previous fifteen years. At the end of the year he went to seek health at Lucca and Pisa, where he wrote his masterpiece, "Humphrey Clinker." Mean- time he was growing weaker, and on Sept. 17, 1771, he died in his villa near Leg- horn. SMOOT, REED, a United States Sen- ator from Utah, born in Salt Lake City, in 1862. After graduating from Brigham Young Academy in 1879, he engaged in business and became a director and officer in many important financial organizations in Salt Lake City and elsewhere. In 1900 he was appointed one of the apostles of the Mormon Church. He was ejected to the United States Senate in 1902, 1908, 1916, and 1920. He was also a member of the Republican National Committee, and in 1919 was chairman of the Repub- lican Senatorial Campaign Committee. In the Senate he was recognized as one of its most industrious and efficient members, and was an especial authority on matters pertaining to finance and the tariff. SMUGGLING, originally and strictly a crime of commerce, a violation of cus- toms laws, to be distinguished from such a crime of manufacture as illicit distilla- tion, which violates excise laws. But the term is commonly applied also to the eva- sive manufacture and disposal of com- modities 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. Smuggling, in the sense of evading cus- toms duties by dealing in contraband goods, has ceased to deserve the name of a trade in the United Kingdom. From about the close of the 17th century to nearly the middle of the 19th century the suppression of that kind of free trade by vigorous methods of prevention engaged the close attention of the inland revenue department. Free trade as a national policy has put down the smuggling trade. Only a very small number of persons comparatively deal in contraband goods now. But when the duties on spirits were higher in England than in Scotland, Northumberland and Cumberland were haunted with smugglers. Haddington and Berwick and the Scotch counties on the 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 activ- ity, 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 intro- duced 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 Na- poleon's Berlin and Milan decrees. Silk from Italy reached England by Smyrna after being a year on passage, by Arch- angel after being two years. Cotton twist, coffee, sugar, tobacco, were shipped from England to Salonica, conveyed thence by mules and horses through Ser- via and Hungary to Vienna, and distrib- uted over the Continent from that capital. Coffee from London would reach Calais by Vienna. SMUTS, JAN CHRISTIAN, a South African soldier and statesman, born in GENERAL JAN CHRISTIAN SMUTS 1870. He was educated at Victoria Col- lege, South Africa, and at Christ College,