87 



OPIUM TRADE. 



OPTICS. 



68 



the introduction of opium, than at tUe drain of bullion which the 

 opium trade occasions. Formerly the produce of China was paid for 

 in silver, but opium has so successfully served the purpose as a medium 

 of commercial exchange, that it has been less necessary to employ 

 coin or bullion. The opium trade has thus been the means of draining 

 China of the precious metals. The Chinese do not regard gold and 

 silver as signs of wealth merely, but as wealth itself ; and in many of 

 their public documents relating to the opium trade the export of silver 

 is also noticed; in some cases it is difficult to ascertain which is 

 considered the paramount grievance. In 1836 an officer of the Chinese 

 government proposed that opium should be rendered a legitimate 

 article of commerce, and that the cultivation of the poppy should be 

 permitted. Extraordinary as it may appear, the poppy is cultivated 

 in at least six different provinces in China with the connivance of the 

 local functionaries. 



So important a source of revenue has the opium monopoly become 

 to the Indian government, that war with China has been regarded as a 

 less evil than a surrender of this privilege. The government is not 

 the grower of the poppy, but controls the growers in an extraordinary 

 way. None must be grown in Benares or Patna, except that of which 

 the juice is sold to the government at a fixed price. No one is obliged 

 to cultivate the plant, and therefore the government offers such a price 

 as will just stimulate production ; and this price is about 9rf. per Ib. 

 for the juice, on an average of years. The government buys the whole 

 produce, be it large or small, at this price. The poppy-fields are 

 measured every year, and their boundaries fixed, in order to prevent 

 collision among those to whom they are assigned. When the poppies 

 are ripe, agents make a circuit of the district, and form by guess a 

 probable estimate of the produce of each field ; and the cultivators are 

 made to sign an agreement to deliver the quantity thus estimated, 

 and as much more as the field will yield. The rigour of the law is 

 brought to bear upon those cultivators who depart from the agree- 

 ment ; they may cultivate the poppy or not as they please ; but if they 

 do, they become bound to the government in a most stringent way. 

 The thickening of the juice by inspissating, the making up into balls, 

 the classifying into qualities, and the packing in chests made of 

 mango-wood (holding on an average about 140 Ibs. each) cost the 

 government about 3. per Ib. ; making, with the cost of the juice itself, 

 something under 4i. per Ib. on an average. Malwah is not a British 

 possession, and the monopoly, therefore, cannot extend to that region ; 

 but the government, nevertheless, obtains a large revenue from Malwah 

 opium, by imposing a frontier duty on all opium sent to Bombay 

 or other ports for shipment ; Malwah itself having no seaboard. Until 

 1834 the East India Company sent their own opium in their own ships 

 for sale in China or elsewhere ; but when the trading powers of the 

 my were abolished, a new system was organised. The opium 

 from I'atna and Benares is sold by auction. When packed in the 

 chests, it is sent from the depots at those two cities to Calcutta, where 

 it a sold by auction to the highest bidders, who carry it to any market 

 they please, but nearly all to China. The auction price has varied 

 from If. to 21*. per Ib., in different years ; but the average is about 

 \'ii., of which Si. is clear profit. These auctions are held ten 

 or twelve times in the year. The government not only pays the cul- 

 tivator for his opium, but advances him money to assist in the culture : 

 a system which throws him much into the power of the government 

 agents. In the accounts of the Indian Revenue and Expenditure, 

 annually laid before parliament, there are always items for advances 

 to opium-cultivators ; purchase of poppy leaves ; purchase of opium 

 juice ; packing and transit expenses ; salaries of agents ; and expenses 

 of sale. So important to the exchequer of India is the 4.000.000/. or 

 6,000,000/. now annually derived from opium, that, though often 

 objected to, it still remains untouched. The Marquis of Dalhousie, in 

 1856, published a minute, giving a sketch of the improvements which 

 had been made in India during his Governor-Generalship from 1848 

 to that year ; he spoke with pleasure of the opium-revenue, but said 

 nntliing about the morale of the trade. During the Indian mutinies 

 of 1857-8, the opium-cultivators were much disturbed, and much of 

 their property was destroyed ; but the relations between Jthe govern- 

 ment and the cultivators continued as before. The transfer of the 

 government from the East India Company to the Queen, in 1858, 

 tnade very little if any change in these relations. 



The above slight sketch of the opium-trade in reference to India 

 may usefully be followed by a few words concerning the proceedings 

 in China. The opium of India is chiefly bought by English and 

 American merchants, who send most of it to China in low-hulled 

 swift sailing vessel*. Other portions go to Malaya, Sumatra, Borneo, 

 Celebes, and other places in the East. The augmentation of price 

 becomes enormous, either by a monopoly of the trade to native 

 princes, or by the imposition of a high duty. The opium clippers sent 

 to China are mostly armed for self-defence, seeing that the trade is an 

 illegal one in the eyes, of the government, or is at least never openly 

 recognised. There are always Chinese merchants willing to assist the 

 English merchants in the traffic, and Chinese officials willing to be 

 bribed into connivance; and hence there is very little difficulty in 

 Kitting the opium landed on shore, in exchange for Sycee silver. 

 There are no bills, bonds, or barter ; pure solid silver, at so much per 

 oz. is insisted on as the medium of purchase. It has been conjectured 

 that the merchants obtain somewhat over a guinea a pound for the 



opium, in an average of years ; but there are no means of determining 

 this ; whatever it may be, this price is enormously increased by the 

 time the opium smokers and chewers'obtain the drug in the interior of 

 China. When, on the cessation of the East India Company's trading 

 powers in 1834, a " Superintendent of Trade" was sent to China by 

 the British Government, this superintendent was perpetually 

 engaged in broils with the Chinese government concerning the opium 

 trade ; these broils led to the seizure and destruction of 20,000 chests 

 of opium by the Chinese officials in 1839 ; and this seizure led to a 

 state of hostilities which has had little intermission between 1839 and 

 1860. We refer to the articles CANTON, CHINA, HONGKONG, &c. in the 

 GEOG. Div. for an account of the various transactions in which Lin, 

 Keshen, Kwan, and Ke-guy, figured on the part of the Chinese, 

 and Davis, Elliott, Maitland, Brewer, Gough, Parker, and Pottinger on 

 the side of the British. 



OPOPO'NAX CHIRO'NIUM (Koch), a native of the south of 

 Europe, and also of Asia Minor, a tall plant, often 8 feet high, from 

 the base of the stem or summit of the root of which, when wounded, 

 flows a yellow milky juice, which hardens on exposure to the sun and 

 air. It occurs either in tears or in masses called placentae. The tears 

 are globose or angular, fatty to the touch, externally brownish-yellow, 

 fragile, and, on being triturated, yield a yellow powder. The odour 

 is strong, somewhat nauseous, resembling ammoniacum with a bitter 

 balsamic taste. The specific gravity is 1'622. 



Its constituents are resin, gum, and volatile oil. In its action on the 

 human system it corresponds with the other gum-resins of the 

 Umbcllifertr. [ASAFOSTIDA.] The Ferula Hoosh.ee, a native of Beloo- 

 chistan, produces a gum called hooshee, which, though not collected, 

 resembles the opoponax of the European shops. 



(Royle, Flora oj the Himalaya, p. 231.) 



OPPOSITION. [CONJUNCTION AND OPPOSITION.] 



OPTIC AXIS. The line or lines in a doubly-refracting crystal in 

 the direction of which no double refraction takes place, is termed the 

 optic axit or axet. Iceland spar has but one optic axis, and this 

 coincides with the axis of the rhornbohedron. In uniaxal crystals the 

 optic axis is identical with the geometrical. When the doubly- 

 refractive forces neutralise each other, so that there is no double 

 refraction in a particular direction, a line along that direction is some- 

 times termed the resultant axis. In uniaxal crystals the course of Hie 

 extraordinarily refracted ray [REFRACTION ; POLARIZATION] is constant 

 for each crystal with relation to the optic axis ; it is either refracted 

 towards it, relatively to the ordinary ray, when the crystal is said to 

 have a potitire optic axis ; or bent from it, when the crystal is said to 

 have a negative axis. 



OPTICS is that branch of physical science which explains the 

 formation of images, as depending on the known laws by which the 

 modifications of light are governed. [LiOHT.] These images are 

 formed either by polished reflecting surfaces or by transparent refract- 

 ing media. In the former case, the angles of incidence and reflection 

 are equal; in the latter, the sines of the angles of incidence and 

 refraction are in a constant ratio for one and the same medium. The 

 position and magnitude of the image of an object is easily ascertained, 

 when we have previously ascertained the position of the image of a 

 point, in reference to the position of the point itself and of the 

 reflecting or refracting instrument; in other words, when we have 

 found the relation between the conjugate foci, so called because it 

 universally holds in optics, that whichever focus be considered the 

 object, the other will be the image. The principal focus of an instru- 

 ment is that to or from which a pencil of parallel rays falling perpen- 

 dicularly (or nearly so) on the instrument is made to converge or 

 diverge after reflection or refraction. In a plane mirror the conjugate 

 foci are similarly situated at opposite sides of the mirror [LIGHT]; 

 consequently in this instance the instrument has no principal focus. 

 Generally, the distance of the principal focus from the instrument is 

 called the focal length of that instrument, whether a reflector or a 

 refractor. Sincfe conjugate foci are mutually such, it follows that rays 

 proceeding from the principal focus will, after reflection or refraction, 

 emerge in a parallel pencil. We shall now proceed to the relations 

 existing between the conjugate foci of spherical reflectors, observing 



Fig. 1 



that the axis of the instrument is the right line containing the centre 

 of the spherical surface and the conjugate foci. The rays under 



