THE

LAWS AND PRACTICAL REGULATIONS

FORMING THE

WATER-SIDE

AND

GENERAL PRACTICE

OF THE

CUSTOMS;

viz.

REGULATIONS

FOR THE APPOINTMENT, INSTRUCTION, AND CONDUCT

OF THE

OFFICERS OF THE CUSTOMS;

A STATEMENT OF VARIOUS ATTEMPTS TO SMUGGLE GOODS ;

Rules to be observed in Charging Officers ;

USEFUL TABLES AND

INFORMATION;

LAWS AND ORDERS RELATIVE TO SEIZURES;

NUMEROUS EXAMPLES OF THE

Entry, Examination, and Delivery of Foreign Goods;

TABLES OF TARES AND OTHER ALLOWANCES

To which the Merchant is entitled according to present Practice;

AND

A DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT

Of the General Appearance, Distinctive Marks, the Country of Production, and the Uses
to which commonly applied, of the

PRINCIPAL ARTICLES OF COMMERCE,
&c. &c. &c.

BY ROBERT ELLIS, Esq.,

LONG ROOM, CUSTOM-HOUSE, LONDON.

LONDON:

A. H. BAILY & CO., 83, CORNHILL.

PREFACE.

THE idea of publishing the Water-side Practice, was first suggested to me by T. H. Davis, Esq., one of the Surveyors-general of his Majesty's Customs, about four years since; but other matters at that time pressing upon my attention, the idea, although not abandoned, was of necessity postponed.

A suggestion subsequently made to me by Mr. Alexander Lyell, of the Custom-house at Aberdeen,* that the publication of a work on the Laws and Practical Regulations of the Customs, would be highly desirable, and beyond measure acceptable, as well to the officers as the merchants generally, induced me to think seriously of setting about it; and as that suggestion did not enibrace the Waterside Practice, I resolved at once to add it to the "Laws and Practical Regulations of the Customs."

In 1727 Mr. Henry Crouch, of the London Customhouse, published a work on this particular subject; and it would appear by an advertisement now before me, dated 1745, that he was at that time preparing for the

press, "A Complete View of the British Customs," containing "Ample Instructions for the Entering, Examining, and Delivering of Goods and Merchandizes imported into Great Britain from Foreign Parts;" illustrated by Examples, &c. This work, of which the above is the prospectus, was the last Mr. Crouch published.

From that period to the year 1812, Mr. Crouch's work was the only one extant. In that year, Mr. James Smyth, Comptrolling-surveyor of Warehouses at Hull, took up the ground, which for upwards of sixty years had been unoccupied, and published a work entitled "The Practice of the Customs, in the Entry, Examination, and Delivery of Goods and Merchandizes usually imported from Foreign Parts." In the preface to that work, Mr. Smyth very justly remarks, "That the value and authority of Mr. Crouch's book had long been on the decline, in consequence of various Acts of Parliament, and orders from the Board of Customs, having given rise to new modes and forms of practice; and that a work labouring under such disadvantages, can furnish information to those only who can discriminate between the parts to be rejected as obselete, and those which still remain in force."

Since 1821, the date of Mr. Smyth's last publication (now sixteen years since), no work has appeared on this subject. In consequence of the wish so kindly expressed to me by Mr. Davis, that I would take up the ground thus vacated, and publish the "Waterside Practice of the Customs," I issued a prospectus early in the year 1834, announcing my intention to publish such a work.

Ideas formed in theory, widely differ from those which practical experience furnishes. This self-evident prin