302 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



September, 1893, created a commission, consisting of nine emi- 

 nently qualified persons, including two natives of India of high 

 position and unconnected with the Government, and an eminent 

 physician, to inquire into and fully report on this whole subject^ 

 The first report of the commission, published in 1894 and present- 

 ing simply the evidence taken in England, was an exhibit of the 

 most interesting but utterly antagonistic and contradictory opin- 

 ions and evidence. For the petitioners, sixteen witnesses, mainly 

 missionaries, medical men connected with missions and residents 

 for considerable periods in India and China, were called; and 

 nearly all of these, as the result of personal experience and obser- 

 vation, testified in the most positive manner, and in consonance with 

 popular opinion, that the use of opium physically, morally, and 

 socially is highly deleterious, and ought to be discouraged, and if 

 possible absolutely prevented. Considered by itself this testimony 

 would seem to be conclusive and incapable of refutation. But, on 

 the other hand, an equal number of witnesses — English officials, 

 qualified by education, lengthened residence in India and China, 

 and exceptional opportunities for observation, civil servants, 

 medical men of the highest reputation connected with hospital 

 and sanitary work and with the army in every part of India — 

 gave unqualifiedly contradictory evidence, which may be summed 

 up as follows : That opium has been used for centuries in India 

 and China, without any extensive deleterious influence on the 

 population; that the "Sikhs" of India, who in point of physical 

 structure and health are claimed to be the finest people in the 

 world, and whose religion forbids the use of tobacco, are habitual 

 users of it ; that while the excessive use of opium is unquestion- 

 ably in a high degree deleterious, it is far less so than the excess- 

 ive use of alcohol ; that the use of opium in India and China is 

 comparatively much less than the use of ardent spirits in Great 

 Britain ; that the excessive use of it, as by the so-called " opium 

 sot," is the result very largely of the circumstance that the 

 miserably poor afflicted with disease in India, China, and other 

 Asiatic countries where there is no intelligent medical treatment, 

 and little or no hospital service, resort to it as the only means 

 of lessening their sufferings; that so far from the allegation 

 being true that the supply of opium by India to China is disas- 

 trous in the highest degree to the people of the latter country, 

 the fact is that the use of the Indian product, owing to its higher 

 quality and price, is almost wholly restricted to the wealthier 

 classes of China; that the cultivation of the poppy for the pro- 

 duction of opium is very general in China, and to such an extent 

 that one single province of tlie empire annually produces more 

 opium than the entire export of India; and, finally, that any at- 

 tempt on the part of either the Indian or Chinese Government 



