718 



OPIUM. 



the names of black earth, white skin, and red skin, 

 which severally fetch about 800, 600, and 400 dol- 

 lars a chest. The quality which they prize in these 

 samples may be gathered from a paper by Dr But- 

 ler, ' On the Preparation of Opium for the Chinese 

 Market," published in the Journal of the Asiatic 

 Society of Bengal, in March, 1836. " The great 

 object of the Bengal opium agencies is to furnish 

 an article suitable to the peculiar tastes of the 

 population of China, who value any sample of 

 opium in direct proportion to the quantity of hot- 

 drawn watery extract obtainable from it, and to 

 the purity and strength of the flavour of that ex- 

 tract when dried and smoked through a pipe. The 

 aim, therefore, of the agencies should be to pre- 

 pare their opium so that it may retain as much as 

 possible its native sensible qualities, and its solu- 

 bility in hot water. Upon these points depends 

 the virtually higher price that Benares opium 

 brings in the China market, and the lower prices 

 of Behar, Mai wa, and Turkey opium. Of the last 

 of these, equal (Chinese) values contain larger 

 quantities of the narcotic principles of opium, but 

 are from their greater spissitude, arid the less care- 

 ful preparation of the Behar and Mahva, incapable 

 of yielding extracts in equal quantity and perfec- 

 tion of flavour with the Benares." 



From calculations made by foreign residents in 

 China, and published, in the Chinese Repository in 

 the year 1836, it appears that if 34,000 chests of 

 opium are imported, they would yield 33,320,000 

 taels, nearly equivalent to an ounce weight of 

 smokeable extract. By allowing one tael to each 

 person for daily consumption, the number of 

 smokers supplied by this quantity of the drug 

 would be 912,000. But it is evident from state- 

 ments which subsequently appeared from other 

 parties, that a mace, nearly equal to a drachm 

 weight of the extract, would be an ample allow- 

 ance for daily consumption. When we consider 

 also that the same portion is two or three times 

 ignited, that the extract which in its fresh state 

 served the luxurious mandarin one day, supplies the 

 pipe of an inferior the next, and that even the 

 dregs and dirt of the pipe are greedily devoured by 

 the menial, the number of consumers is greatly in- 

 creased, and may be fairly estimated at more than 

 two millions. But even this number, large in it- 

 self, looks small before the Chinese population of 

 300,000,000, or, as some will have it, 350,000,000; 

 and if the above calculations be correct, we must 

 believe, that the use of opium is not yet widely 

 spread throughout the empire, but is confined to 

 certain districts. 



It is allowed that the effects of opium are the 

 same whether swallowed in a solid or liquid state, 

 or smoked through a pipe. The latter plan is 

 usually practised by the Chinese, and no doubt 

 would be pernicious even if used with moderation. 

 But we will venture to say that this scarcely ever 

 occurs. The pleasure is so great or the infatua- 

 tion so strong that it cannot be resisted, and the 

 drunkard is the victim of his folly. The words of 

 a great poet, now no more, (Coleridge) on this 

 subject will be recollected. They occur in a let- 

 ter written to an intimate friend, while he was still 

 a slave to the accursed habit" into which "he 

 was seduced ignorantly." For ten years," he 

 says, " the anguish of my spirit has been indescrib- 

 able. Cpnceive a poor miserable wretch, who for 

 many years has been attempting to beat off pain 

 by a constant recurrence to the vice that repro- 



duces it. Conceive a spirit in hell employed in 

 tracing out for others the road to that heaven from 

 which his crimes exclude him. In short, conceive 

 whatever is most wretched, helpless, hopeless, and 

 you will form as tolerable a notion of my state as it 

 is possible for a good man to have. In the one crime 

 of opium, what crime have I not made myself guilty 

 of? After my death, I earnestly entreat that u 

 full and unqualified narrative of my wretchedness 

 and its guilty cause, may be made public, that at 

 least some good may be effected by the direful ex- 

 ample." 



The following extract from a pamphlet published 

 at Calcutta under the title of " Remarks on the 

 Opium Trade with China," expresses the more in- 

 jurious effects of opium over ardent spirits: 



" The intoxicating property, or rather properties, 

 of opium, differ in their nature from the intoxicat- 

 ing property of alcohol. In some respects the ef- 

 fects of the intoxication are also different. They 

 both agree, however, in this, that they both stiinu-. 

 late the nervous system to an unnatural degree, 

 and are only fit for use when such a state of bodily 

 illness already exists as to make a stimulus of this 

 nature subservient to the restoration of other vital 

 functions disordered. They both agree in this, that 

 the pleasurable sense of excitement attending their 

 indulgence is followed by a relaxation of the system, 

 and an undue depression of both the bodily and 

 mental powers when the excitement is over. 

 They both agree in this, as a consequence, that 

 the oftener they are indulged in for the sake of this 

 pleasurable sense of excitement, the greater must 

 be the quantity used, in order to keep up thnt 

 same degree of excitement ; so that, if once the 

 appetite is formed, constantly increasing indulgence 

 is necessary and almost inevitable, and not only so, 

 but is yielded to unconsciously of this increase. 

 The craving of the appetite is insensibly the man's 

 standard for estimating what he can (as he sup- 

 poses safely) indulge in. They both agree in this, 

 that they disorder the digestive organs, predispose 

 to most other diseases, and materially shorten the 

 term of life. They both agree in this, that they 

 stupify and derange the intellectual powers, and 

 that habitually ; for the seasons of depression are 

 quite as far below healthy mental vigour, as those 

 of alternate excitement are beyond. And over the 

 final stages of mental suffering to which they both 

 lead, one is fain to draw the veil ; fiction can paint 

 nothing of horror half so horrible. They both 

 agree in this, that they utterly corrupt the moral 

 sense : give to gross appetite the reins of reason ; 

 deprave and brutalize the heart : shut up all the 

 avenues to conscience : and make their victim the 

 easy prey to every temptation that presents itself. 

 There is but one point of difference between the 

 intoxication of ardent spirits and that of opium 

 deserving of particular attention here ; and that is, 

 the ten-fold force with which every argument 

 against the former applies to the latter. There is 

 no slavery on earth to name with the bondage into 

 which opium casts its victim. There is scarcely 

 one known instance of escape from its toils, when 

 once they have fairly enveloped a man. We need 

 not appeal to the highly -wrought narrations of per- 

 sonal experience on this subject, which have of 

 late years come before the public ; they rather in- 

 vite distrust than otherwise, by the exaggeration 

 of their poetical style. But the fact is far too 

 notorious to be questioned for one moment, that 

 there is in opium, when once indulged in, a fatal 



