Trial of John Jasper, lay precentor of Cloisterham Cathedral in the County of Kent, for the murder of Edwin Drood, engineer

by England) Dickens Fellowship (London

Witness: No. I imagine it rather depends on the amount of opium taken, and various other circumstances.

Mr. Walters: Suppose a man was in the habit of having a particular smoke of opium—mixing it in a particular way; do you think it would be over in a few minutes?

Witness: I could not tell you. Nor do I know whether he had those habits.

Mr. Walters: You don’t think it would take a few hours?

Witness: No idea.

Mr. Walters: Would it surprise you to know that after an orgy he would be clear-headed in the morning?

Witness: Nothing would surprise me, I think, from the little I have read of their literature.

Mr. Walters: You know nothing about it?

Witness: As a matter of experience, that is the exhilarating fact.

Mr. Walters: You never saw Jasper taking opium?