China and the Chinese

by Edmond Plauchut

Great commercial value of opium—Cultivation of the poppy—Exports of opium from India—What opium is—Preparation of the drug—Opinions on the English monopoly of the trade in it—Ingenious mode of smuggling opium—Efforts of Chinese Government to check its importation—Proclamation of the Viceroy Wang—Opinion of Li-Shi-Shen on the properties of opium—The worst form of opium smoking—Its introduction to Formosa by the Dutch—Depopulation of the island—Punishments inflicted on opium-smokers—Opinions of doctors on the effects of opium-eating or smoking—Chinese prisoners deprived of their usual pipe—The real danger to the poor of indulgence in opium—Evidence of Archibald Little—The Chinese and European pipe contrasted.

Opium has from the first been so important a factor in the history of Western intercourse with China, and indulgence in it is said to have had so much to do with the physical and mental inferiority of the modern Celestials, that it will be well to devote a chapter to the consideration of the nature of the drug and its effects.

CULTIVATION OF THE POPPY

The poppy (papaver somniferum), from which the narcotic is extracted, is grown in Persia and in China, but it is in India that it is most largely and successfully cultivated. The monopoly of producing it in her great Eastern dependency, and of selling it to the Chinese, has always been vigorously protected by England, and the destruction of that monopoly when it comes will be an immense loss to the revenue. Opium is, in fact, to the English what tobacco is to the French, and there is no doubt that British missionary effort has been greatly hampered by the dread of the authorities of any interference with their lucrative trade.

In the vast and fertile valley of the Ganges, the poppy has but to be sown to yield an extensive crop. The Patna and Benares districts are especially prolific, and at the time of efflorescence the air is laden with the heavy, enervating scent from the flowers. Nothing could be much more dreary and monotonous than the appearance of an Indian poppy plantation, when the soil is covered with the dried petals of the flower. Some few years ago the tax on the exported drug, both from Calcutta and from Bombay, amounted to considerably over six millions of pounds. The cultivators take their produce to the Government factories, where it is purchased from them, and then sent to the sea-port, so that any illicit consumption is rendered almost impossible. The comparatively small amount of opium consumed in India itself is taxed by the excise officers, and the bulk of the crop finds its way to China. It is only of late years that native opium has competed at all with Indian, but already it is rumoured that eventually it will drive the foreign imports away altogether. Szechuan opium is taking the place of Indian on the Yang-tse, and Little, in his Through the Yang-tse Gorges, describes vast poppy plantations in the districts watered by the great river. He bemoans the association of the English name "with the introduction of the useful yet pernicious drug," and points out that it was first brought to China from India by the Portuguese, adding that, in any case, the opium-pipe is most surely a Chinese invention, for it is unknown in any other land.

PREPARATION OF OPIUM

Opium in its first state is the dried juice of the capsules before they are ripe, and is gathered in the form of little globules of milky sap, of the colour of amber. In India the seed is sown early in November, and the capsules are ready for piercing about the beginning of February, when they are nearly as large as hen's eggs. The delicate operation of opening the poppy-heads for the exudation of the precious fluid is performed with an instrument about three inches long, consisting of four small knives bound together, the edges looking like the teeth of a comb. The labourers have each several of these instruments, which, when not in use, they carry carefully in a case. The day after the capsules have been pierced, the juice is collected by scraping it off into a kind of scoop, or small trowel, whence it is transferred to an earthen pot, hanging from the collector's side When full, these pots are carefully covered over and carried to the gatherer's home. The contents of the jar require the most careful attention for three or four weeks to ensure proper and equal drying. The juice is poured into a shallow plate or dish of brass, slightly tilted, to let any watery fluid, which would spoil the drug, drain off, and when the process is complete, the opium is carefully packed in jars of equal size, and taken to the Government factories. Here it is carefully examined, chemically tested, and weighed, to make sure that it has not been tampered with in any way; and, if all is well, it is placed in pots of the regulation size: the pots are ticketed and ranged in rows on shelves in a big room set apart for the purpose. The rest of the preparation for export is done in the Government laboratories, and the process is a long and delicate one. The united crops of vast districts are thrown into large tubs, where they are kneaded up together till they are of the right consistency. The material is then taken out, divided into equal portions, and placed on small tables, where it is manipulated, with the aid of copper bowls of a spherical shape, into balls of an equal weight, of about the size of a man's head. Some workmen become so skilful that they turn out a hundred of these balls a day. Poppy-leaves, reduced to powder, are used to prevent the opium from sticking together, and the balls are sprinkled with the powder, much as chemists used to sprinkle pills.

The opium thus prepared, is now placed in great earthenware pans, and carried to a drying-room, where the balls are ranged in rows of mathematical regularity. During the drying process each sphere is pierced every now and then with a long needle, to prevent the fermentation, which, but for the greatest vigilance, might set in. The pricking also sets free the gas which would rapidly deteriorate the value of the drug, prevents it from becoming musty, and drives off the swarms of insects attracted by the smell from it.

The cases in which the balls of opium are packed are made of wood from the mountains of Nepaul, which is brought to its destination in the form of huge rafts. These rafts come down the Ganges on sailing vessels, at the approach of which all other crafts have to make way. Calcutta is the port of export for Bengal, and the opium is shipped into steamers and taken to Hong-Kong or Shanghai.

As is well known, the British Government has been very severely criticized, not only by foreigners, but by English philanthropists, for maintaining the opium monopoly, and the entire cessation of the trade from India is earnestly advocated. Those who wish to maintain things as they are, urge that the control exercised by the authorities is a beneficent one, and that but for it opium would be cultivated throughout the whole of India, and its consumption increased a thousand-fold. Time, the great equalizer, will no doubt in the end keep up the monopoly without any definite action on the part of the English, for although nominally forbidden, the culture of the poppy is encouraged in China by the officials responsible for the enforcement of the law, and immense quantities of opium of native production is sold in the western provinces, for a much lower price than the imported drug.