"I know that, because of this money-grasping, trade-compelling feature of England's dealings with my country, millions of wretched people of China have been made more miserable; stalwart men and women have been made paupers, vagrants, and the lowest of criminals; and hundreds of thousands of the weaker ones of my race—mainly among the women—have been sent to suicide graves. All this because gold and territory are greater in the eyes of the British Government, than the rights and bodies of a weak people."—H. E. Li Hung-Chang.
"O my brothers and all my friends,
If you would hearken to good advice,
Avoid the poppy juice for ever and aye,
As it is a plague most noxious and vile!
It will eat out your minds,
It will rot away your vitals,
It will shrivel up your bowels,
It will make you walk as a leper,
It will cast you into prison,
It will send you to your death!"
H. E. Li Hung-Chang.
CHAPTER X
THE STORY OF AN OPIUM SMOKER
THE first man to enter the Opium Refuge in Hwochow, as patient, was named Fan of the village of Southern Springs. He came from a once wealthy clan, now reduced through opium smoking to comparative poverty. He had not yet reached the stage of positive want, but that condition is never far from the habitual heavy smoker, and should he continue a few years longer, beggary will be the ultimate fate of his wife and family.
The temptation was at his very door, for all the best-watered land surrounding Southern Springs was given up to poppy cultivation. During the time when the plant was in flower, the village nestled amidst some hundreds of acres of exquisite iridescent bloom. The beauty was shortlived, even as the seeming prosperity of the grower, and but a few days later Southern Springs stood amidst bare brown fields of dry poppy heads, scarred by the cutter's knife, exuding in thick drops the poisonous juices—a striking picture in the eyes of all men of the fate awaiting the smoker, who, lulled by the insidious charm of the fascinating drug, would finally be the only one unable to see himself a hopeless, helpless, degraded wreck.
At the close of three weeks' treatment in the Refuge, Fan returned home a new creature, restored in body and mind, and with a heart renewed in hope. In his own immediate family were several members, victims as himself of the deadly drug, and amongst these was his nephew, adopted into the family on the footing of a son since death had robbed him of the last boy who might pay the filial sacrifice of tears and lamentations at his tomb. Moreover, his wife's keen intelligence and strong will were gradually being subjugated by a growing apathy, result of her secret habit. On these two Fan urged a plea to give the Refuge a trial, and his nephew, impressed by the evident good result in his uncle's case and the assurance that the treatment had induced very slight suffering, pronounced himself willing to try the experiment; his wife, on the other hand, repudiated with scorn any such suggestion. Another few weeks saw the young man return to Southern Springs loud in praise of all he had seen and heard in Hwochow. He recounted all his experiences, every detail of the treatment, the number of pills swallowed, and the care with which the strength of the pills was graded from the powerful "Pill of life" to the lesser "Pill of strength" and the final "Pill of restoration."