But the smuggling did not end there. I had instructed him to lay in a supply of curios, silks, and other oriental things, and bring them to Boston. This part of the venture was as successful as the first, and I made quite a snug little sum. It was my first considerable profit. That was in '46-'47.
I do not think any one in good standing in business has an idea now of cheating the Government out of tariff duties. I had not, at that time, the slightest idea that I was doing wrong. I felt entirely innocent of defrauding two governments, and did not realize that I was a smuggler. The wrong of the transaction I fully understood afterward.
But I fear that the moral sense as to smuggling, to use an ugly term, was not so delicate in those days. Even patriotic and good men thought that it was not very bad to bring in articles from Europe and the Orient without stopping to pay the duty levied by the United States. There was no systematic attempt to defraud the Government. There was just no thought at all, except to get in a few luxuries upon which it did not seem worth while to pay the customs dues. I can recall a few examples of this lax way of treating the tariff regulations. They were the acts of men of great social and business prominence. If done to-day, they would shock the whole country--even the Democratic and low tariff, or no tariff, part of it.
One day a banker, who was a famous figure in Boston, a leader in the world of business, asked me if I could not bring over for him some silver he had ordered sent to the Train offices in Liverpool. I consented. Shortly after this, the steward of the Ocean Monarch told me he had a very heavy package addressed to "George Francis Train." I directed him to bring it into the office. Then I saw that the heavy package was addressed, in the corner, from the shippers to this famous Boston banker. And so, without any intent to defraud the Government on my part, and, I suppose, without any intent on the part of the great banker to do a distinctly wrong act, we had actually conspired to smuggle in some exquisite silver plate for the richest banker in New England, to save a few dollars' tariff duty!
Once while I was in Paris, in '50, I wanted to buy some presents for the young lady to whom I was engaged to be married--Miss Davis--who was then living in Louisville, Ky. I called at the Paris office of a famous American firm of jewelers, and the resident agent took me to a magnificent establishment, where I saw the wealth of a world in gems.