"When we rose to go, and asked how much we owed, we were astonished at the price. The proprietor demanded a dollar for what we had had, when, as we afterwards learned, twenty-five cents would have been more than enough. We had some words with him through our interpreter, and finally paid the bill which we had found so outrageous. We told him we should not come there again; and he said he did not expect us to, as strangers rarely came more than once into the Chinese part of Shanghai. He was a nice specimen of a Chinese rascal; and Doctor Bronson says he must have taken lessons of some of the American swindlers at Niagara Falls and other popular resorts. What a pity it is that whenever you find something outrageously bad in a strange country, you have only to think a moment to discover something equally bad in your own!
SMOKING OPIUM.
"At one place we looked into a little den where some people were smoking opium. They were lying on benches, and were very close together. The room wasn't more than eight feet square, and yet there were a dozen people in it, and perhaps one or two more. The guide told us it was a mistake to suppose that they smoked opium as we smoke tobacco. We stand, sit, or walk while smoking; but when a Chinese uses opium, he always reclines on a bench or bed, and gives himself up to his enjoyment. Men go to the shops where opium is sold and lie down on the benches for a period of pleasure. Sometimes two persons go together, and then they lie on the same bench and take turns in filling each other's pipe.
"The opium must be boiled to fit it for use, and when ready it looks like very thick molasses. A man takes a long needle and dips it into the opium, and then he twists it around till he gets a ball of the drug as large as a pea. He holds this ball in the flame of a lamp till it becomes hot and partially burning, and then he thrusts it into a little orifice in the top of the bowl of the pipe. He continues to hold it in the flame, and, while it is burning, he slowly inhales the fumes that come from it. A few whiffs exhaust the pipe, and then the smoker rests for several minutes before he takes another. The amount required for intoxication is regulated and estimated in pipes; one man can be overcome by three or four pipes, while another will need ten, twenty, or even thirty of them. A beginner is satisfied with one or two pipes, and will go to sleep for several hours. He is said to have dreams of the pleasantest sort, but he generally feels weak and exhausted the next day.
OPIUM-PIPE.
"Dr. Bronson says he tried to smoke opium the first time he was in China, but it made him very ill, and he did not get through with a single pipe. Some Europeans have learned to like it, and have lost their senses in consequence of giving way to the temptation. It is said to be the most seductive thing in the world, and some who have tried it once say it was so delightful that they would not risk a second time, for fear the habit would be so fixed that they could not shake it off. It is said that when a Chinese has tried it for ten or fifteen days in succession he cannot recover, or but very rarely does so. The effects are worse than those of intoxicating liquors, as they speedily render a man incapable of any kind of business, even when he is temporarily free from the influence of the drug. The habit is an expensive one, as the cost of opium is very great in consequence of the taxes and the high profits to those who deal in it. In a short time a man finds that all his earnings go for opium, and even when he is comfortably well off he will make a serious inroad on his property by his indulgence in the vice. A gentleman who has lived long in China, and studied the effects of opium on the people, says as follows: