455 
OPIUM SMOICING. 
himself and perpetrates by an act of suicide tbe most horrible 
of all murders, On the 9th February 1849, an inquest was 
held on the body of “ Oil Chin Sing” a Chinese at Tanjong 
Fagar. “ The body was that of a male Chinese about 25 
years of age, yellow, emaciated, and diseased looking, with a 
wound on the head as by a bruise, and a deep penetrating 
incision in the upper part of the abdomen, cutting into that 
cavity, as well as into the chest; with 3 superficial wounds 
near as if inflicted by a knife ” According to the evidence of 
his friends and those he lived with, the deceased had been 
sick for 24 days of a pain and craving at his stomach; he had 
been an opium smoker to a great extent, but being at that 
time poor he could not obtain his usual supply; mad with a 
craving he could not satisfy, and a pain he could not allay, he 
often expressed a wish to die. In the morning he attempted 
to kill himself by striking his head with an iron pot, which 
broke and bruised his head, and in the afternoon being sur¬ 
rounded by his friends, and only separated from them by a 
mat, be laid his abdomen and chest open with a razor, to 
such an extent that his bowels protruded on the bed he lay 
on, yet a slight moan only revealed his agony, and not till 
his friends saw the blood trickling from bis couch, did they 
suspect what he had done; and done so effectually, that in 
half an hour after he died, with the razor firmly grasped in 
his hand. On the 17th of June 1849, an inquest was held on 
one “ Cho-ah-Keow” who was admitted into the Pauper 
Hospital the day before, with Ins throat cut by an instrument 
used as a chopping knife (similar to the large knife used by 
cooks in England for mincing) and who died some hours 
after. On the evidence of Lim-ah-Chew “the deceased was a 
palanquin maker, had been sick with diarrhoea for 20 days, 
he could not bear the pain and so cut his throat.” “The 
deceased was an opium smoker, and the witness is one 
when he has money.” The deceased frequently mentioned 
liis intention of dying as he “could not bear the pain and 
had no opium.When he was admitted into the hospital, 
he had slight or no symptoms of diarrhoea upon him, and as 
that complaint is known to all not to be attended with much 
pain, no doubt was left in the Coroner and Jury’s mind that 
the deceased had committed suicide while labouring under 
the agony induced by the want, of the drug. Many cases 
have lately presented themselves to me, where no other cause 
could be assigned for death than the want of opium, and the 
diseases which tiie former abuse of it created. I understand 
that new legislative measures are about to be framed in Ben¬ 
gal regarding the revenue from the sale of opium. If the local 
