64 
CHINESE  POISONS. 
aided  a  magistrate  in  the  administration  of  a  poison  of  this  class, 
gives  the  following  narrative  of  the  transaction,  which  was  a 
filicide.  (Oar  apology  for  coining  this  word  is,  that  it  is  needed 
to  denote  a  crime,  or  rather  extra-judicial  practice,  not  un- 
common in  China  :  resorted  to  for  making  away  with  dangerous 
adult  sons.)  The  son  of  that  officer  was  a  lawless  and  incorrigi- 
ble character,  who  by  misdemeanors  perilled  the  safety  of  his 
family,  and  they  determined  on  his  removal.  To  effect  that  ob- 
ject without  publicity,  no  small  finesse  was  requisite  on  the  part 
of  his  father  and  friends.  Suspecting  their  designs,  he  became 
excessively  wary.  On  the  day  agreed  upon  for  his  execution, 
the  father  feigned  to  be  withholding  the  son's  much  loved  opium, 
until  he  could  induce  the  hapless  youth  to  take  a  draught  of  tea, 
which  he  was  artfully  led  to  suppose  was  drugged.  At  length, 
affecting  to  be  wearied  by  the  son's  contumacy,  the  father  gave 
him  his  opium  pipe,  mixing  with  the  genial  papaver  another  drug 
intensely  venomous.  After  a  few  inhalations,  the  victim  fell 
into  a  stupor,  which  was  followed  by  convulsions,  to  which  his 
athletic  frame  succumbed  in  less  than  six  hours.  Lest  it  be 
thought  that,  in  publishing  an  account  of  this  smokable  poison, 
we  are  fulminating  an  insidious  "  counterblast"  against  tobacco, 
we  would  state  that  few  except  the  mandarins  are  in  possession 
of  the  secret ;  or,  if  there  is  no  comfort  in  that  to  the  lovers  of 
cheroots,  we  add,  that,  unlike  arsenic,  this  noxious  agent  renders 
dying  tolerably  easy. 
To  the  same  class  belong  those  drugs  which  are  employed  by 
burglars  for  stupifying  the  inmates  of  the  house  to  be  robbed. 
Ever  since  we  read  in  Commissioner  Lin's  anti-opium  diatribe, 
references  to  medicines  used  by  robbers,  kidnappers,  and  sorcer- 
ers, which  that  statesmen  compared  to  the  prohibited  narcotic, 
we  have  been  vainly  endeavoring  to  investigate  their  nature. 
There  is,  however,  abundant  evidence  that  such  agents  are  em- 
ployed to  induce  stupor  for  criminal  purposes. 
Kidnapping  male  children  for  sale  in  Siam  or  the  Straits  has 
long  been  a  common  practice  on  the  seaboard,  and,  a  short  time 
since,  to  meet  the  demand  for  Chinese  females  in  Cuba,  many 
girls  were  kidnapped.  The  provincial  capital,  Hangchau,  was 
thrown  into  consternation  in  consequence  of  the  paucity  of  slave 
labor  in  the  West  Indies.    Popular  placards  and  official  procla- 
