Nor let my kingdom’s rivers take their course
Thro’ my burnt bosom, nor entreat the North
To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips,
And comfort me with cold.’”
Dr. Madden tried, experimentally, the effects of opium—he commenced with a grain, which produced no perceptible effect, to this he afterwards added another grain. After two hours from commencing the operation, his spirits became excited. “My faculties,” he writes, “appeared enlarged, everything I looked at seemed increased in volume. I had no longer the same pleasure when I closed my eyes which I had when they were open; it appeared to me as if it was only external objects which were acted on by the imagination, and magnified into images of pleasure; in short, it was the faint exquisite music of a dream in a waking moment. I made my way home as fast as possible, dreading, at every step, that I should commit some extravagance. In walking, I was hardly sensible of my feet touching the ground—it seemed as if I slid along the street, impelled by some invisible agent, and that my blood was composed of some ethereal fluid, which rendered my body lighter than air. I got to bed the moment I reached home. The most extraordinary visions of delight filled my brain all night. In the morning I rose pale and dispirited, my head ached, my body was so debilitated, that I was obliged to remain on the sofa all day, dearly paying for my first essay at opium-eating.” Thus far, the opium-eater and the opium-smoker seem to agree in the principal results from the use of the drug.
From the communications of Dr. Medhurst may be learnt many important facts relative to this habit in China. Day by day, and year by year, the practice of opium-smoking prevails more and more among this people, and by and by it will doubtless have a powerful effect upon the destinies of the country. It is said, that the late Emperor used the drug; it is certain that most of the government officers do, and their innumerable attendants are in the same category. Opium is used as a luxury by all classes, and to a great extent, indeed so great, that it cannot fail to exhibit its effects speedily upon the mass of the inhabitants. In rich families, even if the head of the house does not use the drug, the sons soon learn to use it, and almost all are exposed to the temptation of employing it, as many of their friends and acquaintances are in the habit of smoking; and it is considered a mark of politeness to offer the pipe to a friend or visitor. Many persons fly to the use of the pipe when they get into trouble, and when they are afflicted with chronic or painful diseases, sleeplessness, &c. Several persons who have been attended for malignant tumours were made victims of the drug, by the use of it to appease the pain and distress they had to endure. The beggars are, to a great extent, under its influence; but they use the dregs and scrapings only of the half-consumed drug, which is removed from the pipe-head when it is cleaned. The most common cause of the Chinese resorting to the use of the opium-pipe is their not knowing how to employ their leisure hours when the business of the day is over—there is no periodical literature to engage their attention. Their families do not present sufficient attractions to keep them at home, and sauntering about of an evening, with nothing to employ the mind, they are easily tempted into the opium shops, where one acquaintance or another is sure to be found, who invites to the use of the drug.
Many of the middling classes dissipate their money in this indulgence, and, among the lower classes, those who indulge in the use of opium are reduced to abject poverty. Having no property, furniture, or clothes to dispose of, their wives and children are sold to supply their ever-increasing appetite for the drug; and when these are gone, with greatly diminished strength for labour, they can no longer earn sufficient for their own wants, and are obliged to beg for their daily bread. As to the supply of opium, they must depend on the scrapings of other men’s pipes, and as soon as they are unable, by begging, to obtain the necessaries of life, together with the half-burnt opium, on which their very life depends, they droop and die by the roadside, and are buried at the expense of the charitable.
Two respectable young men, the sons of an officer of high rank, well informed, having received a good education, accustomed to good society, and who excited great interest in the minds of those with whom they came in contact, lately died. So inveterate was their habit of opium-smoking, and so large the quantity necessary to keep up the stimulus, that their funds were exhausted. Friends assisted them, and relieved their necessities again and again; but it was impossible to give them bread and opium too, and they subsequently died, one after the other, in the most abject and destitute condition.
At Shanghae, just inside the north gate, in front of a temple, one of such destitute persons, unable to procure either food or opium, was lying at the last gasp, while two or three others with drooping heads were sitting near, who looked as if they would soon be prostrated too. The next day, the first of the group lay dead and stiff, with a coarse mat wound round his body for a shroud. The rest were lying down unable to rise. The third day another was dead, and the remainder nearly so. Help was vain, and pity was the only feeling that could be indulged.
It may be judged of the extent of opium-smoking in China from the reports of the native Teapoas, inclosures in Sir J. Bowring’s Report. The inhabitants in the Chung-wan (Centre bazaar) are about 5,800. The number that smoke opium, merely because they like it, are upwards of 2,600. In the Hah-wan (Canton bazaar) there are upwards of 1,200. The number that smoke opium, merely because they like it, are upwards of 600. At Sheong-wan the number of male residents are 13,000; there are 3,000 opium-smokers. At Tai-ping-shan the number of inhabitants are 5,300 men; of these upwards of 1,200 smoke opium because they like it. The number of inhabitants in Ting-loong-chow are 2,500; the number of opium-smokers are reported at 400. Thus, out of 27,800 inhabitants, 7,800 of whom, or 26 per cent., are smokers of opium.