366 SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR 



dulging in opium by smoking it in a pipe. There is no 

 record, written or pictorial, of this practice earlier than 

 1730, about fifty years before which date (1680) we find 

 the smoking of tobacco represented on Chinese pottery. 

 Very soon the Chinese were not content to import their 

 opium from India, but large areas were put under culti- 

 vation with the Indian poppy in China and Manchuria. 

 For a century or more the export of opium from India to 

 China continued and increased as the consumption of the 

 drug increased, the native Chinese production not being 

 sufficient to meet the demand. In 1730 and 1796 the 

 Chinese Government issued edicts forbidding the smoking 

 of opium, and in the last century the efforts of the 

 Chinese authorities to prevent the importation of Indian 

 opium, whether with a view to suppress a dangerous vice 

 or to favour the home-grown article, led to war with 

 England. In some parts of China for instance, Amoy 

 three-fourths of the population are, or were until lately, 

 opium-smokers. Now it is believed that the Chinese 

 Government is genuinely determined to put a stop to the 

 dangerous and enervating indulgence in this narcotic, and 

 the opium-growers of India will have to limit their out- 

 put, and employ their land and labour for other crops. 



It is the fact that the eating of opium (for it is not 

 " smoked " there) does very little harm in India, since it 

 is not used by a large proportion of the people nor in 

 excess. Many persons who have studied the subject 

 maintain that the widely-spread injury caused by opium 

 in China is due to the short time during which it has 

 been in use there as compared with India. It is held 

 that a population after a few centuries becomes immune 

 to such poisonous but attractive indulgences by the kill- 

 ing out of those who cannot resist excess and the 

 suggestion is that the simplest way of dealing with such 

 cravings for poison is to let those who have them and 



