Chapter VI: Part 6

The reason the Chinese opium dealers have been so reticent in affording information to the Commissioners of Customs at these Treaty Ports is, that they are afraid to do so, fearing if they gave correct information, they might in so doing furnish to the Mandarins reasons for "squeezing" them, or for placing taxes and other restrictions on their trade; for the Government officials in China, from the highest to the lowest, are, as I have before said, the most corrupt, cruel, and unscrupulous body of men in the whole world. Mr. Storrs Turner has told us that the Chinese Government is a paternal one, exercising a fatherly care of its people, and always exhorting them to virtue. Nothing can be more fallacious than this. Theoretically, there is much that is good in the system of government in China, but practically it is quite the reverse. There is little sympathy between the supreme Government and the great body of the people. The Emperor, his family, and immediate suite, are all Tartars, quite another race from the Chinese, differing totally in customs, manners, dress, and social habits. The Governors or Viceroys are pretty much absolute sovereigns within their own provinces. Each has under him a host of officials, commonly known as Mandarins, who are generally the most rapacious and corrupt of men; their salaries, in most cases, are purely nominal, for they are expected to pay themselves, which they well understand how to do. Their system of taxation is irregular and incomplete, and the process of squeezing is openly followed all over the country. There is nothing a Chinese dreads so much as disclosing his pecuniary means, or, indeed, any information that might furnish a clue to them. If he admitted that he cultivated fifty acres of opium, or bought a hundred pikuls of opium in a year, his means and his profits could be arrived at by a simple process of arithmetic, and although he might feel sure that, so far as Sir Robert Hart and the foreign Commissioners under him were concerned, no wrong need be apprehended, yet he is so distrustful and suspicious, that he would fear lest the facts should reach the ears of the higher Chinese officials through the native subordinates in the Commissioners' Offices.

A Chinaman, therefore, will never tell the amount or value of his property, or the profits he is making by his business. He fears being plundered; that is the simple fact. I know a respectable man in Hong Kong, the possessor of considerable house property there, a man who would be called wealthy even in England. Some years ago, when at Canton, where he had a house, a Mandarin suddenly arrested and put him into prison. What a Chinese prison is you will find in Dr. Gray's book. It is not the place where a paternal Government ought to house the worst of criminals, or even a wild beast. The man had committed no crime, and had done nothing whatever to warrant this treatment; in vain he asked what he had been imprisoned for, and demanded to be confronted with his accusers, if there were any. His gaolers shrugged their shoulders and gave him no answer. He was kept there for two or three months. Ultimately he received a hint, which he recognized as an official intimation, that unless he came down handsomely, as the phrase is, and that speedily, he would lose his head. He took the hint, made the best bargain he could, and ultimately had to pay seventy thousand dollars, or about fourteen thousand pounds, for his release. There never was any accusation brought against him.

I knew another man, living at Swatow, who had made a great deal of money in trade. He bought a large piece of foreshore at that place, which he reclaimed and turned into profitable land. A military Mandarin living there thought him a fair object for a squeeze; the same process was gone through as in the case I have before mentioned; but this man, not having the same wisdom as the other, held fast to his dollars. The result was that a false charge of kidnapping, alleged to have been committed twenty years before, was brought against him, and he was taken out and beheaded. That is the way money is raised by the governors and their subordinates in China. So much for Mr. Turner's benign and paternal Government. There is no regular Income Tax in China, but there is a Property Tax levied in the way I have mentioned. The Chinese authorities will let a man go on making money for many years, and when they think he has accumulated sufficient wealth for their purpose, they pounce down upon him and demand as much as they think they can extort. That is the reason the Chinese opium dealers are so reticent when inquiries are made concerning opium. If the Commissioners at the Treaty Ports had got fair returns, I have no doubt that it is not a hundred thousand pikuls of native opium that Sir Robert Hart would have estimated as the quantity of opium grown in China, but probably four or five times that amount.

Here, again, I must quote from Mr. Spence's report. Nothing can possibly show better the prevalence of opium smoking in the provinces of Szechuan and Yunnan and Hupah, they being about equal in extent to France, Spain, and Portugal. This is what he says on the prevalence of opium smoking in those provinces:--

Before giving an estimate of the amount of opium produced in Szechuan,
I must refer, in explanation of the large figures I shall be obliged
to use, to the extraordinary prevalence of the habit of opium smoking
in Western Hupei, in Szechuan, and in Yunnan. It prevails to an extent
undreamt of in other parts of China. The Roman Catholic missionaries,
who are stationed all over Szechuan to the number of nearly one
hundred, and who, living amongst the people, have opportunities of
observation denied to travellers, estimate that one-tenth of the whole
male adult population of the province smoke opium. Mr. Parker, after
travelling all over the thickly-settled parts of the province,
estimates the proportion of smokers thus:--

Per cent.
Labourers and small farmers 10
Small shopkeepers 20
Hawkers, soldiers 30
Merchants, gentry 80
Officials and their staffs 90
Actors, prostitutes, thieves, vagabonds 95

I agree with Mr. Parker that the proportion of smokers varies in
different classes according to their means and leisure, but I feel
sure his estimate of the per-centage amongst the labouring classes is
much too low. One of the most numerous class of labourers in China is
the coolie class, day labourers who live by picking up odd jobs,
turning their hands to any kind of unskilled work that may be offered.
Certainly more than half of them smoke. Of the labouring classes who
are not "coolies," as a whole this much may be said--they only have
money at stated intervals; and when out of a gang of forty or fifty
workmen or sailors only four or five smoke opium, it does not mean
that only ten per cent. are smokers. In all probability half of the
whole gang squandered their wages the day they got the money, and have
nothing left to buy opium or anything else until the job or voyage for
which they have been engaged is finished.

For example, of my junk crew on my voyage to Chungking, only four
smoked opium regularly, but seven others who had spent all their wages
before we started smoked whenever I gave them a few cash. The total
abstinence of a British sailor at sea for months on end proves
nothing; it is what he will do when he has ten pounds in his pocket,
and is in a street with fifteen public-houses, that decides his
sobriety. So of workmen in the west of China, a large number smoke
opium when they have money, and do the best they can when they have
none. Whatever be the exact per-centage of the opium smokers in
Szechuan in the whole population, it is many times larger than in the
east.

Now, after all this absolutely irrefutable testimony, many might think it unnecessary to go further. They little know, however, how strong a hold fanaticism takes of the human mind; they little think how difficult it is to eradicate a fascinating LIE from the mind, once its glittering meretricious form has got hold of it and supplanted wholesome truth. I have, therefore, to deal not only with those whose minds are as a sheet of white paper, but with those in whom the fallacious seeds that beget error and fanaticism have been sown and taken firm root. I will now give you an extract from Sir Rutherford Alcock's paper, which is deserving of careful study:--

I may say here, that although most of the staple arguments and
misleading opinions on opium and its disastrous effects come from the
missionaries in China, whose good faith I do not question, there is no
stronger protest against exaggerated and sensational statements on
record than has been supplied by one of their number, the late Dr.
Medhurst, of whom it has been truly said, he was "one of the most
able, experienced, zealous missionaries in China." Opposed in
principle to the opium trade in all its aspects, his statements will
be readily accepted as unimpeachable evidence. The following remark
appears in an official paper, forwarded to the Chief Superintendent of
Trade of Hong Kong in 1855. Alluding to a speech of an American
missionary who had visited England, and was reported to have told the
British public "that the smokers of the contraband article have
increased from eight to fifteen millions, yielding an annual death
harvest of more than a million," and further characterizing the
traffic as "staining the British name in China with the deepest
disgrace," Dr. Medhurst observes, "_such statements do great harm;
they produce a fictitious and groundless excitement in the minds of
the religious and philanthropic public at home, while they steel
against all reasonable and moderate representations the minds of the
political and mercantile body abroad. The estimate given has not even
the semblance of truth; it is an outrageous exaggeration._" And yet in
a memorial presented to Lord Clarendon by two distinguished and justly
respected noblemen, the Earls of Shaftesbury and Chichester, on the
extent of the opium trade in 1855, these, and still more "outrageous
exaggerations" appear with the authority of their names. Lord
Shaftesbury officializes the estimate that twenty millions of Chinese
are opium smokers, and assumes that of this number one-tenth, that is,
two millions, die yearly, and states it as "an appalling fact."
Appalling, indeed! But what if it be a mere figment of the
imagination, and absolutely devoid, as Dr. Medhurst says, of a
semblance of truth?

This is the way the benevolent British public have been cajoled and misled for the last twenty years, or more, by opium-phobists. No wonder that the Anti-Opium Society can raise fifty thousand pounds so easily, for the British public is a benevolent one, and will subscribe its gold readily where what they believe a proper object presents itself. Sad, indeed it is, that in the present case its munificence represents, not merely so much money lost, but vast sums recklessly squandered in a mischievous agitation, that whilst it tends to sap and ruin one of the loveliest of all virtues--that charity that endureth long and is kind--paralyses missionary labour, prejudices the trade and revenue of our great Indian Empire, and defames our country in the eyes of the whole world. Sad, sad also to see that venerated nobleman, Lord Shaftesbury, after his long and honourable career, and so many other good and eminent men, made the victims of such miserable delusions.

I think it is now clear, both from the testimony I have adduced, and from Mr. Turner's own admission, that the poppy is not only indigenous to China, but that it has been cultivated there from time immemorial, and that opium is smoked generally throughout China, the only limit to its use being the means of procuring the drug.

LECTURE III.

In my last lecture I dealt with the fallacy that the poppy is not indigenous to China, but has recently been introduced there presumably by British agency, and that opium smoking in China was confined to a small percentage of the people, which had been steadily increasing since the introduction into China of Indian opium.

I now proceed to discuss fallacy number 3, which is, that "_opium smoking is injurious to the system, more so than spirit drinking_." I think I shall be able to show most clearly that exactly the reverse is the case. With this it will be convenient to take fallacy number 5, which is a kindred one, namely, that "_opium smoking and opium eating are equally hurtful_." This fallacy lies at the root of the opium controversy, for it alone has enabled the Anti-Opium agitators to give plausibility to their teaching and to obtain some hold, as they lately had, upon the public mind. There is, in truth, about as much difference in the two practices as there is between drinking, say, a pint of ardent spirits and bathing the surface of one's body with the same stimulant. Before proceeding further, it may be stated that opium is admitted by physicians in all countries to be an invaluable medicine, for which there is no known substitute. Mr. Storrs Turner says that from the time of Hippocrates to the present day it has been the physician's invaluable ally in his struggles against disease and death.

Pereira thus describes the drug:--

Opium is undoubtedly the most important and valuable remedy of the
whole Materia Medica. For other medicines we have one or more
substitutes, but for opium none,--at least in the large majority of
cases in which its peculiar and beneficial influence is required. Its
good effects are not, as is the case with some valuable medicines,
remote and contingent, but they are immediate, direct, and obvious,
and its operation is not attended with pain or discomfort. Furthermore
it is applied, and with the greatest success, to the relief of
maladies of everyday occurrence, some of which are attended with acute
human suffering.

This is the description given of opium in Dr. Quain's _Dictionary of Medicine_ recently published:--

Opium and morphia naturally stand first and still hold their place as
our most potent and reliable narcotics, all the more valuable because
almost alone in their class they are also endowed with powerful
anodyne action, in virtue of which they may relieve pain without
causing sleep. Valuable as it is in all forms of insomnia, opium is
especially indicated in typhus fever and other acute disorders, when
delirium and prolonged wakefulness seem to endanger life. The
principal drawback to opium is the digestive disturbance following its
use, and the fact that, as toleration is very rapidly established,
gradually increasing doses are needed to check the counteracting
influence of habit.

The Anti-Opium Society and their followers allege that dram-drinking is not only less baneful than opium-smoking, but they say that the latter practice so injures the constitution, and has such extraordinary attractions for those who indulge in it, that it is impossible to get rid of the habit, and that, in effect, whilst drunkards can be reformed, opium smokers cannot. This is absolutely untrue. The reverse is much nearer the mark. The effect upon the system of constant spirit drinking, leaving actual drunkenness and its consequences aside, is that it produces organic changes in the system, by acting upon what medical men call the "microscopic tissues," of which the whole human frame is made up; also poisoning the blood, which then, instead of being a healthy fluid coursing freely through the frame and invigorating the entire system, flows sluggishly, producing organic changes in the blood vessels, inducing various diseases according to the constitution and tendencies of the individual. Three of the most usual diseases to which the habitual dram drinker is subject are liver disease, fatty degeneration of the heart, and paralysis. There is not a medical student of three months' experience who could not, if you entered a dissecting-room, point you out a "drunkard's liver." The moment he sees that object he knows at once that the wretched being to whom it belonged had, by continued indulgence in alcohol, ruined his constitution and health, and brought himself to an untimely end. There is another serious consequence arising from habitual drinking. Not only does the habit irreparably ruin the general health so that cure is impossible, but it induces insanity, and I believe I am not beyond the mark in stating that fifty per cent. at the least of the lunatics in our various asylums throughout the country have become insane from over-indulgence in alcohol. Dr. Pereira, in his celebrated _Materia Medica_, states that out of one hundred and ten cases occurring in male patients admitted into the Hanwell Lunatic Asylum in 1840, no fewer than thirty-one were ascribed to intemperance, while thirty-four were referred to combined causes of which intemperance was stated to be one; and yet Mr. Turner and his disciples say that spirit drinking is a lesser vice than opium smoking!

I need not remind you of the consequences to others besides the actual victims to spirit drinking, for that is unfortunately told too eloquently and but too vividly brought before us every day in the public newspapers. You will find that those acts of violence, those unfortunate cases that make one shudder to read, happening daily in this country--kicking wives, sometimes to death, beating and otherwise ill-using helpless children, violently attacking unoffending people in the streets--all are the results, more or less, of spirit drinking. Even the missionaries admit that opium smoking does not produce any of these evils. As I have said before, truth is natural to the human mind, and will reveal itself, even where it is not directly relevant to the purpose. Mr. Turner does not venture to dispute this in his book, and I would call your attention to the passage. He says on page 33:--

Even between drunkenness and opium smoking there are perceptible
distinctions. We must allow that opium smoking is a much more pacific
and polite vice. The opium sot does not quarrel with his mate nor kick
his wife to death; he is quiet and harmless enough while the spirit of
the drug possesses him.

That is all true so far as the fact goes, but if an insinuation is intended that the Chinaman gets violent after the effect of the drug has passed away, there is no foundation for it in fact. The Chinaman takes opium just because he likes it, and knowing it will act at once as a pleasing sedative and a harmless stimulant. A man who is working hard all day in a tropical climate, whether at bodily or mental work, finds, towards the close of the day, his nervous system in an unsettled state, and looks for a stimulant, and the most harmless and most effectual one he can find is the opium pipe. When opium and opium smoking are better understood--and I believe the subject is now but imperfectly known by most medical men in this country--I feel convinced that the faculty will largely prescribe opium smoking, not merely as a substitute for dram drinking, but as a curative agency, that in many cases will be found invaluable. In this I am borne out by an eminent medical authority, to whom I shall refer by-and-by. The regular and habitual opium smoker is seldom or never found to indulge in spirits at all. Stimulants of all kinds are so freely taken here that people never look upon them as a poison; but in point of fact they are a terrible poison, and a very active one, too. Another medical work of very great authority is that by Dr. Taylor.[7] It has always received the greatest attention in courts of law; and it is also held in the highest estimation by the medical profession. At page 315, under the head of "Poisoning by Alcohol," he says:--

The stomach has been found intensely congested or inflamed, the mucous
membrane presenting in one case a bright red, and in another a dark
red-brown colour. When death has taken place rapidly, there may be a
peculiar odour of spirits in the contents; but this will not be
perceived if the quantity taken was small, or many hours have elapsed
before the inspection is made. The brain and its membranes are found
congested, and in some instances there is effusion of blood or serum
beneath the inner membrane. In a case observed by Dr. Geoghegan, in
which a pint of spirits had been taken and proved fatal in eight
hours, black extravasation was found on the mucous membrane of the
stomach; but no trace of alcohol could be detected in the contents.
The action of a strong alcoholic liquid on the mucous membrane of the
stomach so closely resembles the effect produced by arsenic and other
irritants, as easily to give rise to the suspicion of mineral irritant
poisoning. A drawing in the museum collection of Guy's Hospital
furnishes a good illustration of the local action of alcohol. The
whole of the mucous membrane of the stomach is highly corrugated and
is of a deep brownish-red colour. _Of all the liquids affecting the
brain this has the most powerful action on the stomach._ A case of
alcoholic poisoning of a child, æt. seven, referred to me by Mr.
Jackaman, coroner for Ipswich, in July 1863, will serve to show the
correctness of this remark. A girl was found at four o'clock in the
morning lying perfectly insensible on the floor. She had had access to
some brandy, which she had swallowed from a quartern measure, found
near her empty. She had spoken to her mother only ten minutes before,
so that the symptoms must have come on very rapidly. She was seen by
Mr. Adams four hours afterwards. She was then quite insensible, in a
state of profound coma, the skin cold, and covered with a clammy
perspiration. There had been slight vomiting. The child died in twelve
hours, without recovering consciousness, from the time at which she
was first found.

So far Dr. Taylor, a most competent authority on the subject, as showing what a poison alcohol is. Now alcohol, as I have before mentioned, effects an organic change in the system, which opium, if smoked, or even if eaten does not; and when spirits are indulged in to a very considerable extent, the disease produced is absolutely incurable, because it is impossible for any medical skill to give a man new tissues, new blood, a new stomach, or a new liver, where the whole substance and material of all has undergone a complete and ruinous change. Now, the case as regards opium is totally different, because, no matter how much one may indulge in opium, whether in eating or smoking, the effects produced are always curable. This is so as regards opium eating; in respect to the infinitely less exciting practice of opium _smoking_, the rule applies with very much greater force. A man may smoke opium inordinately until, from want of appetite and impaired digestion, he seems sinking into the grave; he is, however, only labouring under functional derangement, which is always curable. The use of opium in any form produces no organic change in the system whatever. Excessive eating or smoking opium may impair the appetite and digestion, but that will be all. I have very competent medical authority for saying this. This fact places opium and alcohol in two entirely different categories. The one, if eaten in moderation, is, I believe, harmless, if not beneficial; while, as to the smoking of the drug, it is absolutely innocuous;--but if alcohol be freely though not inordinately used, it will prove, sooner or later, destructive to the system, acting upon the frame as a slow poison, which must eventually end, as experience shows, in ruin and death. De Quincey tells us in his _Confessions_ that he ate opium with impunity for eighteen years, and that it was only after eight years _abuse_ of opium eating that he suffered in any way from the practice.

I will now give you another extract from Dr. Pereira's book. At page 446, under the heading "Consequences of Habitual Drunkenness," he says:--

The continued use of spirituous liquors gives rise to various morbid
conditions of system, a few only of the most remarkable of which can
be here referred to. One of these is the disease known by the various
names of _delirium tremens_, _d. potatorum_, _oinomapria_, &c., and
which is characterized by delirium, tremor of the extremities,
wakefulness, and great frequency of pulse. The delirium is of a
peculiar kind. It usually consists in the imagined presence of objects
which the patient is anxious to seize or avoid. Its pathology is not
understood. It is sometimes, but not constantly, connected with or
dependent on an inflammatory condition of the brain, or its membranes.
Sometimes it is more allied to nervous fever. Opium has been found an
important agent in relieving it. Insanity is another disease produced
by the immoderate and habitual use of spirituous liquors.

Now I do not think that, much as they have abused opium smoking, any of the Anti-Opium writers have ever alleged insanity to be an effect or concomitant of opium smoking. It must therefore be taken as generally admitted that opium smoking, or even opium eating, does not produce insanity. We have, then, this undisputed fact, viz. _that insanity and acts of violence do not result from opium smoking, whilst they are unquestionably produced by spirit drinking_.

I had recently some conversation on the subject of opium with a medical friend who has been in large practice in London, for twenty years. I had previously spoken to him frequently on the same subject, and he has been kind enough to give me his views in a very interesting and concise manner. This opinion, I may tell you, is not paid for, or prepared merely to support a particular purpose, as in the case of trials in the law courts. It is purely spontaneous. We all know that professional men, whether doctors, lawyers, surveyors, and others, are all more or less prone to take the views of the party requiring their services, and they, accordingly, will give opinions more or less coinciding with those views. It does not, however, follow that the persons doing so are guilty of any moral wrong, or that they write or state what they do not believe to be true; on the contrary, they have a complete faith in the statements they make. The natural bent of the mind is to lean towards the views urged by one's patient or client; and thus two physicians or lawyers of the highest standing and character will be found to hold different opinions. But this statement with which I have been furnished stands on an entirely different footing. There can have been no bias in the mind of the writer; it is simply the result of study and experience. I have the most perfect confidence in this gentleman's opinions. He is Mr. William Brend, M.R.C.S. He says:--

There is no organic disease traceable to the use of opium, either
directly or indirectly, and whether used in moderate quantities or
even in great excess. In other words, _there is no special disease
associated with opium_. Functional disorder, more or less, may be, and
no doubt is, induced by the improper or unnecessary use of opium; but
this is only what may be said of any other cause of deranged health,
such as gluttony, bad air, mental anxiety....

However great the functional disorder produced by opium, even when
carried to great excess, may be, the whole effect passes off, and the
bodily system is restored in a little while to a state of complete
health, if the habit be discontinued. Alcohol, when taken in
moderation, unquestionably benefits a certain number of individuals,
but there are others whose systems will not tolerate the smallest
quantities; it acts upon them like a poison. But in the case of all
persons when alcohol is taken in excess disease is sooner or later
produced; that disease consists of organic changes induced in the
blood-vessels of the entire system, more especially the minute
blood-vessels called the capillaries; these become dilated, and
consequently weakened in their coats, and eventually paralyzed, so
that they cannot contract upon the blood. The result of this is
stagnation, leading to further changes still, such as fatty
degeneration of all the organs; for it must be remembered that alcohol
circulates with the blood, and thus finds its way into the remotest
tissues. The special diseases referrable to alcohol, besides this
general fatty degeneration, are the disease of the liver called
"cirrhosis," and very frequently "Bright's disease of the kidneys."
Here, then, we have a great and important difference between opium and
alcohol. The second great difference grows out of the first. It is
this:--I have said that if alcohol be taken in excess for a certain
length of time, depending to some extent upon the susceptibility of
the individual, organic change, that is disease, is inevitable; but
the saddest part of it is that it is real disease, not merely
functional disorder; so that if those who have yielded to that excess
can be persuaded to abandon alcohol entirely the mischief induced must
remain. The progress of further evil may be staved off, but the system
can never again be restored to perfect health. _The demon_ has taken a
grip which can never be entirely unloosed. Herein there is the second
great difference between the use of opium and of alcohol in excess.

If what I have said of opium eating be true, common sense will draw
the inference that opium smoking must be comparatively innocuous, for
used in this way, a very small quantity indeed of the active
constituents find their entrance into the system. Its influence, like
tobacco, is exerted entirely upon the nervous system, and when that
influence has passed off it leaves (as also in the case of tobacco) a
greater or less craving for its repetition; but as organic disease is
not the result, I see no reason why opium smoking in moderation
necessarily degrades the individual more than does the smoking of
tobacco.

Here I will give you another extract from Mr. Storrs Turner's book, which tells against his case very strongly indeed. How he came to insert it I can only understand on the principle I have already mentioned, that truth is inherent to the human mind and will reveal itself occasionally even though it has to struggle through a mountain of prejudice and of warped understanding. This is it, from the evidence of Dr. Eatwell, First Assistant Opium Examiner in the Bengal service; it will be found on page 233:--

Having passed three years in China, I may be allowed to state the
results of my observation, and I can affirm thus far, that the effects
of the abuse of the drug do not come very frequently under
observation, and that when cases do occur, the habit is frequently
found to have been induced by the presence of some painful chronic
disease, to escape from the sufferings of which the patient has fled
to this resource. That this is not always the case, however, I am
perfectly ready to admit, and there are doubtless many who indulge in
the habit to a pernicious extent, led by the same morbid impulses
which induce men to become drunkards in even the most civilised
countries; but these cases do not, at all events, come before the
public eye. It requires no laborious search in civilized England to
discover evidences of the pernicious effects of the abuse of alcoholic
liquors; our open and thronged gin-palaces, and our streets afford
abundant testimony on the subject; but in China this open evidence of
the evil effects of opium is at least wanting. As regards the effects
of the habitual use of the drug on the mass of the people, I must
affirm that no injurious results are visible. The people generally are
a muscular and well-formed race, the labouring portion being capable
of great and prolonged exertion under a fierce sun, in an unhealthy
climate. Their disposition is cheerful and peaceable, and quarrels and
brawls are rarely heard amongst even the lower orders; whilst in
general intelligence they rank deservedly high amongst Orientals. I
will, therefore, conclude with observing, that the proofs are still
wanting to show that the moderate use of opium produces more
pernicious effects upon the constitution than does the moderate use of
spirituous liquors; whilst, at the same time, it is certain that the
consequences of the abuse of the former are less appalling in their
effect upon the victim, and less disastrous to society at large, than
are consequences of the abuse of the latter.

Could any evidence against the allegations of the Anti-Opium Society be stronger than this? Have I not now a right to say, "Out of the mouth of thine own witness I convict thee!"

My own observation goes to show that opium smoking is far more fascinating than opium eating, and that the opium smoker never relapses into the opium eater. Opium eating, as I think I have already stated, is unknown in China. I think these statements put the question as regards opium smoking, opium eating, and spirit drinking in a very different light to what the advocates of the Anti-Opium Society throw upon the subject. The latter talk of the importation of Indian opium into China as the origin of the custom of smoking the drug, or, at the least, that it has made the natives smoke more than they otherwise would have done. There is no truth in such representations. Let us take the year 1880, for instance, and adopting the figures given by Sir Robert Hart, and concurred in by the British merchants, which I take to be quite correct, that the amount of opium imported into China from India was in that year one hundred thousand chests, each chest weighing a pikul, which would amount to about six thousand tons. Distribute those six thousand tons over the whole of China, which, as I have before so often said, is as large as Europe, and with a population amounting to three hundred and sixty millions, and you will find it gives such a trifling annual amount to each person, that Sir Robert Hart cannot mark from its use any damage to the finances of the State, the wealth of its people, or the growth of its population. In the United Kingdom, where we have less than a tenth of the population of China, there were two hundred thousand tons of alcohol--whisky, gin, brandy--and one thousand and ninety millions four hundred and forty-four thousand seven hundred and sixteen gallons of wine and beer consumed in that year. If all these spirits, wine, and beer were mixed up so as to form one vast lake--one huge "devil's punch-bowl"--there would be sufficient liquor for the whole population of the United Kingdom to swim in at one time. But if the tears of all the broken-hearted wives, widows, and orphans that flowed from the use of the accursed mixture were collected, they would produce such a sea of sorrow, such an ocean of misery as never before was presented to the world. Yet philanthropists and Christian people in this country give all their time, energies, and a great deal of their money to put down this purely sentimental grievance in China, and shut their eyes to the terrible evils thundering at their own doors!

The whole purpose of Mr. Storrs Turner's book, and of the Anti-Opium Society, is to write down opium smoking in China, with the ultimate view of suppressing the Indo-China opium trade; and no man living is better aware than Mr. Turner that opium eating is not a practice with the Chinese; indeed, I doubt if it is known in China at all. Yet, knowing all this, he puts forward the outrageous theory that opium smoking and opium eating are equally injurious; it therefore becomes a matter of the first importance that the great difference between these two practices should be clearly shown. In the appendix to Mr. Turner's book there is a mass of evidence, of which a large portion is quite beside the question, for it applies exclusively to opium eating--a practice, I assert and will clearly show, is totally different from, and a thousand times more trying to the constitution than opium smoking. Dr. Ayres says that opium smokers can smoke in one day as much opium as would, if eaten, poison one hundred men, and Dr. Ayres is a very great authority on the subject; for not only has he a large practice among the better classes of Chinese, all of whom are, more or less, opium smokers, but his daily duties bring him into contact with the criminal classes, who are most prone to excessive sensual indulgence of this kind.

This is what Dr. Ayres says upon the subject in his article in the _Friend of China_:--

As regards opium smoking, no prisoner who confessed to be an opium
smoker has been allowed a single grain in the gaol. Neither has he had
any stimulant as a substitute, and I do not find there has been any
evil consequence in breaking off this habit at once, nor that any
precaution has been necessary, further than a closer attention to the
general health. Several very good specimens of opium smokers have come
under observation; one was the case of a man whose daily consumption
had been two ounces a day for nineteen years, and who was allowed
neither opium nor gin, nor was he given any narcotic or stimulant. For
the first few days he suffered from want of sleep, but soon was in
fair health, and expressed himself much pleased at having got rid of
the habit.... In my experience, the habit does no physical harm in
moderation. In the greatest case of excess just mentioned at the gaol,
a better-nourished or developed man for his size it would be difficult
to see.

So far as regards opium _eating_, the best medical authorities are divided as to whether opium eating or drinking in moderation is injurious to the system at all. In any case, opium eating is not the question before us, nor the subject of these lectures, which is opium smoking in China. Mr. Storrs Turner gives, in his appendix, at page 240, extracts from some statements of Lieut.-Col. James Todd, who says:--

This pernicious plant (the poppy) has robbed the Rajpoot of half his
virtues, and while it obscures these it heightens his vices, giving to
his natural bravery a character of insane ferocity, and to the
countenance which would otherwise beam with intelligence an air of
imbecility.

That entirely relates to the _eating_ of the drug by the Rajpoots of India, and has no connection or analogy to opium smoking by the Chinese. There is another quotation on the same page from Dr. Oppenheim, given in Pereira's _Materia Medica_ as follows:--

The habitual _opium eater_ is instantly recognised by his appearance:
a total attenuation of body, a withered, yellow countenance, a lame
gait, &c.

And so on. This, as you see, applies to opium eating only. There are many other instances of the effects of such use of opium given in the appendix, which, after these two quotations, it is useless to further repeat. Indeed, so far as relevancy to his subject goes, Mr. Storrs Turner might just as well have introduced into his book medical or other testimony as to the effects of gluttony or spirit drinking. It suits his purpose, however, to mix up the two practices, so as to confuse and mislead his readers. Dr. Oppenheim's statement, by the way, is completely refuted by Dr. Sir George Birdwood, a distinguished physician, whose long residence in Bombay,--where there is a Chinese colony, most, if not all, of whom are habitual smokers of the drug,--and whose thorough acquaintance with the effects of opium eating and opium smoking, entitle his testimony to the very highest consideration. Again, at p. 8 of Mr. Turner's volume, reference is made to De Quincey's book on opium eating, intituled, "The Confessions of an English Opium Eater." Could anything be more disingenuous than this? De Quincey was an opium eater, not an opium smoker. Here is the passage from Mr. Turner's book to which I have referred:--

Those "Confessions," which are not confessions, but an _apologia pro
vitâ suâ_, an elaborate essay to whitewash his reputation and varnish
over the smirching blot of a self-indulgent habit by a glitter of a
fascinating literary style.

Now did anyone ever hear of such an extraordinary explanation of De Quincey's motives in publishing that volume? De Quincey, he says, in effect, was ashamed of the practice of opium eating, and wrote the book as an excuse for his conduct, so horrible, disgraceful, and debasing, according to Mr. Storrs Turner, is--not opium eating, observe you, but--opium smoking. How fallacious are such arguments I think I shall make apparent to the most simple mind. If a man has the misfortune to have contracted a disgraceful habit, such, for instance, as over-indulgence in spirit drinking, the very last thing he would think of doing is to publish a book upon the subject, and thus acquaint the whole world with his infirmity. Yet this is what Mr. Turner alleges against De Quincey. But, in point of fact, he is altogether wrong in supposing that De Quincey was ashamed of opium eating; if he had been, he unquestionably would not have written his book, which, by the way, is one of the most fascinating volumes in our literature. Previous to the publication of it, probably there were not half a dozen people who knew that he, De Quincey, was an opium eater, and in the preface to the work, he says, "that his self-accusation does not amount to a confession of guilt." I know Mr. Turner to be a gentleman utterly incapable of wilfully acting disingenuously, much less of stating intentionally what he knew to be untrue; but he is so blinded by prejudice, his naturally clear intellect is so warped and distorted, and his faculties and reasoning powers are so perverted, by this opium question, and his duties towards the Anti-Opium Society, that he either does not see the difference between the two things,--opium smoking and opium eating,--or, aware of that difference, thinks himself justified in classing them together, as they both proceed from opium, and thus he would persuade himself and his readers that they are equally baneful. But in this book of his he takes De Quincey, the opium eater, who confesses to having eaten three hundred and twenty grains a day, and compares him with an opium-smoking Chinaman who smoked one hundred and eighty grains a day; the difference between eating three hundred and twenty grains and smoking one hundred and eighty grains a day being about as a thousand is to one, in fact, in such case it would be simply the difference between life and death; and yet Mr. Storrs Turner would strive to mix up the two practices, so that the incautious reader might infer that the effects of the one were as injurious as those of the other. Such is the class of arguments with which the Anti-Opium Society and its credulous supporters have been satisfied, and upon which the whole religious world, the country, and the legislature are called upon to come to the rescue of injured humanity, and abolish this Indo-China opium trade.

Now, as De Quincey is on the _tapis_, I cannot refrain from exposing a very disgraceful piece of deception which has been practised upon the public by some of the agents or supporters of the Anti-Opium Society since the first edition of my Lectures appeared. This work of De Quincey, as I have intimated, is a very entertaining book; it is the first of a series of fourteen volumes by the same author, published in 1880 by the eminent firm of Adam and Charles Black, of Edinburgh; the price of each volume is two shillings, which is very moderate indeed, taking the character and quality of the letterpress, the paper, and general "get up" into account, for, as for the copyright, it has expired. Although Mr. Storrs Turner has mis-described the book as a penitential effort on the part of De Quincey, I am afraid that the effect of its perusal on most readers would be to induce them rather to become opium eaters than repel them from the practice, as will be manifest from an extract which I shall shortly give the reader. The truth is, De Quincey, who knew human nature very well, lived by his pen, and was actuated more by the desire to amuse than reform his readers--for, say as you will, a well presented comedy will be always more popular with the multitude than a tragedy, however skilfully performed. Now, I am far from impugning the main features of our author's "confessions," but in saying that in writing this very fascinating and original book he went extensively into the picturesque, and drew largely on his imagination, no person who will afford himself the pleasure of reading the book can, I think, deny. Now, some very zealous agent or advocate of the Anti-Opium Society, fearing that the effect of this work of De Quincey's--brought as it has been into notice in connection with this controversy by Mr. Turner's and my own book--might be to induce the reading public to think that opium, after all, was not so terrible a drug as the Anti-Opium agitators represent, has set himself to the ignoble task of so garbling the work, and importing into it other matter of his own, as to represent opium eating as the most terrible, fearful, and demoralizing practice in the world, and then printing the concoction and flooding the country with the impudent travesty at the very moderate charge of one penny. All the entertaining and diverting passages have been suppressed, and some wretched stuff inserted. It is called on the title page "The Confessions of an Opium Eater; the famous work by Thomas De Quincey. Copyright edition." The whole is nothing more than a burlesque--and a very bad one indeed--of the real volume. In the first place, there is a lie upon the face of it, as the copyright has expired, and it is not in any respect a copy of the original; and secondly, it barely contains one-sixth of the matter of the actual volume, and has "counterfeit" stamped upon every page. It was exposed at the various book-stalls of Messrs. W. H. Smith and Son, in London, and, I believe, also throughout the country. I myself bought two copies at the Charing Cross station a few months ago, but I believe the delectable piece of literary forgery has since been withdrawn. I daresay, however, it has, to a great extent, answered its purpose, _i.e._ to poison the minds of its readers on the Opium question, by making it appear that opium is a terrible poison, and that the smoking of it is more injurious than the excessive indulgence in alcohol. This "pious fraud" has done a grievous wrong to the memory of a great English author, Thomas De Quincey--whose pure and classic English adorns our language--and also an injury to the general public who have advanced their money for the penny lie upon false pretences. The whole affair is just as defensible a proceeding as that of some tenth-rate dauber who, having copied (?) a masterpiece of Sir Joshua Reynolds, or some other great master of the English school, had the miserable caricature oleographed, and flooded the country with the imposture, in the hope of inducing the public to believe that true copies of the originals were offered to them. But these Anti-Opium fanatics do not stick at trifles, and, in their insane desire to make right appear wrong, do not hesitate to defame the dead and vilify the living. I have mentioned this incident to show my readers the unscrupulous efforts these people will resort to in order to impose their fictions upon the public.

Now, leaving De Quincey and his book for the present, let us see what Dr. Ayres says upon the difference between opium eating and opium smoking. In his article in _The Friend of China_, from which I have already quoted, he says:--

I have conducted my observations with much interest, as the effects of
opium eating are well known to me by many years' experience in India,
and I have been surprised to find the opium smoker differs so much
from the opium eater. _I am inclined to the belief that in the popular
mind the two have got confused together. Opium smoking bears no
comparison with opium eating._ The latter is a terrible vice, most
difficult to cure, and showing rapidly very marked constitutional
effects in the consumer.

Dr. Ayres was quite right, the two have got mixed up together, thanks to Mr. Storrs Turner and his confrères. To further explain the difference between opium eating and opium smoking, let us take the familiar instance of tobacco smoking. It is not, I think, generally known that tobacco, taken internally, is a violent and almost instantaneous poison. A very small quantity of it admitted into the stomach produces speedy death, and it is a wonder to some medical men that its use has not been made available by assassins for their foul and deadly purposes. Tobacco has no medicinal properties; it is simply known to chemists and physicians as a poison. Its alkaloid, or active principle, is nicotine, a poison of so deadly and instantaneous a nature as to rank with aconite, strychnine, and prussic acid. Of the four, indeed, it takes the lead. In Taylor's "Medical Jurisprudence," to which I have already referred, it is laid down at page 321, under the head of "Poisoning by Tobacco":--

The effects which this substance produces when taken in a large dose,
either in the form of powder or infusion, are well marked. The
symptoms are faintness, nausea, vomiting, giddiness, delirium, loss of
power in the limbs, general relaxation of the muscular system,
trembling, complete prostration of strength, coldness of the surface
with cold clammy perspiration, convulsive movements, paralysis and
death. In some cases there is purging, with violent pain in the
abdomen; in others there is rather a sense of sinking or depression in
the region of the heart, passing into syncope, or creating a sense of
impending dissolution. With the above-mentioned symptoms there is
dilatation of the pupils, dimness of sight with confusion of ideas, a
small, weak, and scarcely-perceptible pulse, and difficulty of
breathing. Poisoning by tobacco has not often risen to medico-legal
discussion. This is the more remarkable as it is an easily accessible
substance, and the possession of it would not, as in the case of other
poisons, excite surprise or suspicion. In June, 1854, a man was
charged with the death of an infant, of ten weeks, by poisoning it
with tobacco. He placed a quantity of tobacco in the mouth of the
infant, with the view, as he stated, of making it sleep. The infant
was completely narcotized, and died on the second day.... Tobacco owes
its poisonous properties to the presence of a liquid volatile
alkaloid, _nicotina_.

Whilst under the head "Nicotine," on the same page, he says:--

This is a deadly poison, and, like prussic acid, it destroys life in
small doses with great rapidity. I found that a rabbit was killed by a
single drop in three minutes and a half. In fifteen seconds the animal
lost all power of standing, was violently convulsed in its fore and
hind legs, and its back was arched convulsively.

In Dr. Ure's "Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines," it is laid down, at page 250, under the head of "Nicotine":--

This alkaloid is the active principle of the tobacco plant....
Nicotine is a most powerful poison, one drop put on the tongue of a
large dog being sufficient to kill it in two or three minutes.