[91] Sir George Birdwood calls this the greatest temperance triumph of any age or nation.
[92] It has only recently been discovered that the aborigines of Australia also have a narcotic of their own, which has qualities akin to opium and tobacco.
[93] Capt. Hall’s Nemesis.
[94] Opium Question Solved, p. 15. Cf. Sir Charles Trevelyan, Comm. on E. I. Finance, Qu. 1532-40.
[95] And in this connection it might occur to us that if, in the wake of our civilization, instead of the “blue ruin” which we gave him, we had brought to the Red Indian the marvellous gift of opium, “that noble race and brave” would not have “passed away,” but be still surviving to smoke the calumet of peace with the divine opium in the bowl.
[96] Parliamentary Papers 1842-56, No. 26.
[97] Letter to Sir W. Parker, 1843. He adds that “personally he had not been able to discover a single instance of its decidedly bad effects.”
[98] China and the Chinese.
[99] “No one,” says Mr. Gardner, “is maddened by smoking opium to crimes of violence, nor does the habit of smoking increase the criminal returns or swell the number of prison inmates.”
[100] Dr. Pereira, Materia Medica. Dr. Andrew Clarke estimated on one occasion that seven-tenths of the patients in St. Bartholomew’s Hospital owed their ill-health to alcohol.