No. 12.
Winter draws on apace. The fields supply nothing that the wretched opium-smoker can eat. All he can beg is insufficient to purchase that opium without which he could not exist for a single day; he has therefore exchanged his only shirt for a little opium, to quiet for a time what an opium-smoker well called “the torments of the hell within.” All power of enjoyment has long since passed away: now there is nothing before him but suffering—suffering beyond the grave! With trembling steps and a shivering frame he seeks the shelter of a cave among the rocks, in which he will lie down and die. Nor is he alone in his misery; thousands of similar victims are living, dying, dead—they are to be found everywhere.
II.
OPIUM-SMOKING IN CHINA COMPARED
WITH THE DRINKING HABITS OF
ENGLAND.
On this point the evidence of Mr. (now Sir Thomas) Wade, K.C.B., Her Majesty’s minister at the Court of Peking, given in Government Blue Book, No. 5 (1871), p. 432, is so decisive, that it precludes the necessity of further testimony. He says:—
“It is to me vain to think otherwise of the use of the drug in China, than as of a habit many times more pernicious, nationally speaking, than the gin and whisky drinking which we deplore at home. It takes possession more insidiously, and keeps its hold to the full as tenaciously. I know no case of radical cure. It has insured in every case within my knowledge the steady descent, moral and physical, of the smoker, and it is so far a greater mischief than drink, that it does not, by external evidence of its effect, expose its victim to the loss of repute which is the penalty of habitual drunkenness.”
III.
THE EXTENT OF OPIUM-SMOKING IN
CHINA.
In the absence of an official census, we can only select the most reliable evidence to be had on the subject.
J. Dudgeon, Esq., M.D., C.M., of the Peking Mission Hospital, estimates that of the male population in China generally, probably 30 to 40 per cent. smoke opium; of the general city population, 40 to 60 per cent.
The former of these statements is perhaps rather excessive, seeing that the same authority gives the number of agriculturists and field labourers as averaging only 4 to 6 per cent.
Of the city population we have from various quarters more minute estimates to guide us.
Taking three important cities from various parts of the country, we find that the number of opium-smokers does in each case exceed the estimate given by Dr. Dudgeon.
I.—Suchow, the capital of the province of Kiang Su. The Rev. C. H. Du Bose, a resident missionary, writes:—“As a minimum estimate, seven-tenths of the adult males smoke opium. To this fact all of the natives you ask will attest.”
2.—Ningpo, a city of 400,000 inhabitants in the province of Chekiang.
“It contains 2,700 opium-shops, or a shop for every 148 inhabitants, or every thirty men.”
(v. Mander’s “Our Opium Trade with China,” p. 8.)
3.—Tai Yuen, the capital of the province of Shansi. A resident missionary writes:—
“It is estimated that six or seven out of every ten men you meet are addicted to the habit of opium-smoking, and a larger proportion of women than I have seen in any other city. There are about 400 retail opium-shops, and seventy or eighty wholesale dealers.”
It is probable that these cities exceed the average number of opium-smokers throughout the city population in China; indeed, had not the number been extraordinary, the estimate would probably not have been made, but if the number be reduced by one-half, we have still 30 per cent. of the city population throughout China—in other words, some tens of millions—who are the slaves of the opium-pipe.
IV.
ENGLAND’S RESPONSIBILITY IN REGARD
TO THE CHINESE OPIUM-SMOKER.
Summary of facts bearing upon the relation of Great Britain to the Chinese opium-trade:—
1.—When China, as a nation, knew nothing of the vice of opium-smoking, British merchants introduced the drug, enriching the treasury of the East India Company to the demoralisation of the Chinese nation.
2.—When the Chinese Government vigorously remonstrated and strenuously opposed, England carried the legalisation of the trade at the point of the sword.
3.—When the Chinese, discomfited in the field, appealed to the generosity and humanity of the British Government for the suppression of the trade, the British Government continued and upheld the policy they had inaugurated by force of arms.
4.—When the subject is brought before the Houses of Parliament, the trade is acknowledged to be unjustifiable, yet, because of the revenue it brings to the Indian empire, and the difficulties surrounding Indian finance, it is upheld by the Government and supported by the Opposition.
HAZELL, WATSON, AND VINEY,
PRINTERS,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.