“I only take the experiment for what it is worth. There must be very many most lamentable specimens of the effects of indulgence in this vicious practice, although we did not happen to see any of them that morning. They are not, however, so universal, nor even so common, as travellers who write in support of some thesis, or who are not above truckling to popular prejudices in England are pleased to say they are. But if our visit was a failure in one respect, it was fully instructive in another. In the first house we visited, no man spent on an average less than 80 cash a-day on his opium-pipe. One man said he spent 120. The chair-cooly spends 80, and his average earnings are 100 cash a-day. English physicians, unconnected with the missionary societies, have assured me that the cooly opium-smoker dies, not from opium, but from starvation. If he starves himself for his pipe, we need not ask what happens to his family.” (Times.)
[CHAPTER XIII.]
OPIUM MORALS.
Fal. No abuse, Hal.
Poins. No abuse!
Fal. No abuse, Ned, in the world; honest Ned, none. I dispraised him before the wicked, that the wicked might not fall in love with him; in which doing, I have done the part of a careful friend, and a true subject. No abuse, Hal; none, Ned, none;—no, boys, none.——King Henry IV., part II.
Scarce a flower that graces the earth, or a tree waving in the forests, has had its character assailed so mercilessly as the poppy. Not one of the simples or compounds of the chemist’s store, even including arsenic and strychnine, has been so strictly interrogated as to the honourable and dishonourable of its intentions. It is matter of surprise that the East India Company has not been obliged, by authority of Act of Parliament, to imprint the decalogue, at least in the Chinese language, upon every cake or ball of opium leaving their stores. Take upon credit all that some men would tell you, and there would not be room for doubt, were the next informant to state that on the arrival of a cargo of opium, at such a port, on such a day, the entire population cut each other’s throats, on account of the pestilential miasma diffused by the said cargo. What are really the moral effects of opium-smoking, can best be collected from a statement of facts, the reader drawing his own inferences: they are, at any rate, bad enough without the aid of exaggeration.
At Singapore stands a house of correction, in which, during the month of July, 1847, might be found forty-four Chinese criminals; and of these, thirty-five were opium-smokers—not moderate smokers, but indulgers to excess—not confining themselves to what they could obtain with such money as they could spare from their wages, but in some instances, swallowing or smoking them all up, and in certain instances, even more than their wages.[20] The aggregate amount of the monthly wages of seventeen of these men was £16 0s. 10d., or individually 18s. 10½d. The monthly consumption of opium of these men amounted in value to £20 16s. 3d., or individually to £1 4s. 5½d., so that each of these men, in addition to spending all his wages, begged, borrowed, or stole 5s. 7d. monthly, to make up his quantity of opium alone, without reference to any other necessaries. One of these men, who spent £1 5s. monthly, and whose wages only reached half of that amount, was asked to explain how it was to be accounted for. Was there not some error in the calculation, or was he deceiving the person to whom the circumstances were being detailed? How was it possible that, with an income of only 12s. 6d., he could spend £1 5s.? The answer was a graphic one and much to the point:——“What am I in here for?” Of course, the tenants of a jail can account for such discrepancies in arithmetic. The offences for which these persons were confined were such as would stand in a calendar under the rank of vagrants, suspicious characters, persons attempting to steal, and such like—the crimes committed being against property and not persons. This distinction deserves notice, as it will serve as the basis of some future suggestions.
In looking down the column of the table in which the above instances occur, it will be seen that one planter, whose income was twelve shillings and sixpence, expended in opium six times that amount; and another, whose income is not stated, but which would not far exceed the former, expended twelve times that amount in the drug. Occasional instances occur in which, where the income reached twelve shillings and sixpence, the expenditure amounted only to a trifle beyond; and where the income was sixteen shillings and eightpence, the expenditure was only eight shillings and fourpence or ten shillings.
The inspector of the above institution states: “During the course of these investigations, I found some opium-smokers, who declared that their wages only equalled the value of the opium consumed, and in the majority of cases but little exceeded their consumption; yea, I found instances, and these not few, where the value of the opium consumed monthly, was more than the whole wages received. The idea then suggested itself to me, that there must be an affinity betwixt opium-smoking and crime; for when once the habit is formed, it cannot be broken off, while the desire increases with the consumption. It must happen that the wages of the individual will at last be inadequate to supply his desire, even supposing that, after a lengthened career of indulgence, he was able to earn the same amount of money as when, strong, vigorous, and unimpaired, he commenced his dissipation. I, therefore, was not at all surprised when I went to the house of correction, to find that three-fourths of the prisoners were opium-smokers.”
An examination of the prisoners in jail in July of the same year, under different sentences, showed that out of fifty-one Chinese prisoners, fifteen only were not opium-smokers. Seventy per cent. were addicted to the vice, each consuming quantities ranging from twelve to one hundred and eighty grains per day. The same jail was again visited, and the prisoners examined a month afterwards, several fresh criminals had entered, others had been enlarged. At this time, there were sixty-nine criminals, and of these only thirty-one were opium-smokers, being only forty-five per cent. against the seventy per cent. of the former visit.
A quantity of criminals from Pinang under sentence of transportation showed, on examination, the following results:—Out of twenty-one criminals, Chinese and Malays, eight did not smoke. The crimes of these men were murder, stabbing with intent to murder, burglary, and larceny. Ten of these men were Chinese, all of whom smoked but one. Of these nine, eight were condemned for offences against property, one only against the person. Of the nine persons out of the twenty-one who were convicted for offences against the person, four did not smoke, three smoked but little. Hence the conclusion is inevitable, that the criminals of the worst degree, or those committing offences against the person, are either not smokers at all, or are so only to a moderate extent. Other statistics show that, for crimes of this character, highway robbery, and burglary, forty to fifty per cent. only indulge in opium; whilst for vagrancy, misdemeanour, and petty larceny, seventy to eighty per cent. indulged in the use of the drug, and often to a very extraordinary extent.