Cuar. XID] EFFECTS OF OPIUM. 241 
explain; and it is only when to a certain degree 
under its influence that their faculties are alive. 
In the houses devoted to their ruin, these infatuated 
people may be seen at nine o’clock in the evening 
in all the different stages ; some entering half dis- 
tracted to feed the craving appetite they had been 
obliged to subdue during the day; others laughing 
and talking wildly under the effects of a first pipe; 
whilst the couches around are filled with their 
different occupants, who lie languid with an idiot 
smile upon their countenance, too much under the 
influence of the drug to care for passing events, and 
fast merging to the wished-for consummation. The 
last scene in this tragic play is generally a room in 
the rear of the building, a species of dead-house, 
where lie stretched those who have passed into the 
state of bliss the opium smoker madly secks— an 
emblem of the long sleep to which he is blindly 
hurrying.” 
Opium Pipe. 
R 
