CHAPTER VI.
Observations on Smugglers and Smuggling.
Taken all round, I think it must be admitted that the smuggler is a sportsman, in the sense that he plays a hazardous game at great personal risk, at the risk of his fortune, and against great odds. It is true that he takes all the care he can to minimize risks, but he can never hope entirely to eliminate the element of danger; and if his game be divested of all its peccancy, and most of its immorality, we discover in it the essentials of what goes to make horse-racing so popular a “sport” all over the civilized world. What is it that attracts millions to a race-course? Money! The desire to get money coupled with the excitement of the game. Out of every thousand persons who go to a race-meeting, nine hundred and ninety-nine go to gain money under feverishly exciting conditions, and one to see the horses run. Spanish bull-fighting however it may please the Spaniard, can never be otherwise than disgusting to an Englishman. But however shocked an Englishman might be at the ruin the smuggler causes to thousands of his fellow-men, he can never feel for the smuggler the contempt which he feels for the gaudy and bespangled Toreador. He recognizes that the smuggler is playing a dangerous game, sustained by the arts of a subtle intellect, and that he also possesses the qualities which go to make a good fighter.
It may be that the smuggler has little notion of the havoc he spreads. It may be that he argues thus: “There is a demand for drugs, and people will be supplied by some means or other. They are willing to pay almost any price for the drugs they want; they are grown up people and well able to judge for themselves; why should I not make a fortune by supplying them with their wants at my own price?” This is a form of reasoning which contains no fallacy for a man unacquainted with the principles of ethics, and it is certain that the smuggler has not burdened his mind with such learning, admirable as it may be.
His offence against the revenue laws provides the smuggler with a never-ending source of pure delight. Every fresh triumph in this direction he looks upon as another feather in his already innumerably be-feathered cap.
But there can be no question about the dreadful misery for which the smuggler is directly responsible, and in succeeding chapters I shall endeavour to give as realistic a picture as I can of the awful results of this damnable traffic in drugs.
THE DRUG HABIT.
CHAPTER VII.
Opium.[1]
It may be taken for granted that most people are in some degree acquainted with the use of opium, having had it at some time or other administered to them as a medicine. Dover’s powder, so useful a remedy for a cold, contains opium; Laudanum is a preparation of it which is familiar to everybody; and there are scores of other remedies and proprietary preparations which contain opium to a greater or less extent. But useful as opium may be, it must be used with discretion, and must not be allowed to change its character of a faithful servant for that of a master. It can become an exacting and dominating master, and the habit once formed is well nigh ineradicable.