Each vat contains about 20,000 pounds of opium, lying six or eight inches deep, and about the consistency of ordinary paste. Hundreds of coolies are employed to mix it by trampling it with their bare feet. The work is severe upon the muscles of the legs and the tramplers have to be relieved every half hour. Three gangs are generally kept at work, resting one hour and working half an hour. Ropes are stretched for them to take hold of. After the stuff is thoroughly mixed it is made up into cakes by men and women, who wrap it in what is known as opium "trash," pack it in boxes and seal them hermetically for export. Each cake weighs about ten pounds, is about the size of a croquet ball, and is worth from ten to fifteen dollars, according to its purity under assay.
The largest part of the product is shipped to China, but a certain number of chests are retained for sale to licensed dealers in different provinces by the excise department. In 1904 there were 8,730 licensed shops, generally distributed throughout the entire empire. But it is claimed by Lord Curzon that the average number of consumers is only about two in every thousand of the population.
The revenue from licenses is very large. No dealer is permitted to sell more than three tolas (about one and one-eighth ounces) to any person, and no opium can be consumed upon the premises of the dealer. Private smoking clubs and public opium dens were forbidden in 1891, but the strict enforcement of the law has been considered inexpedient for many reasons, chief of which is that less opium is consumed when it is smoked in these places than when it is used privately in the form of pills, which are more common in India than elsewhere. Frequent investigation has demonstrated that opium consumers are more apt to use it to excess when it is taken in private than when it is taken in company, and there are innumerable regulations for the government of smoking-rooms and clubs and for the restriction and discouragement of the habit. The amount consumed in India is about 871,820 pounds annually. The amount exported will average 9,800,000 pounds.
Opium intended for export is sold at auction at Calcutta at the beginning of every month, and, in order to prevent speculation, the number of chests to be sold each month during the year is announced in January. Considerable fluctuation in prices is caused by the demand and the supply on hand in China. The lowest price on record was obtained at the June sale in 1898, when all that was offered went for 929 rupees per chest of 140 pounds, while the highest price ever obtained was 1,450 rupees per chest. The exports of opium vary considerably. The maximum, 86,469 chests, was reached in 1891; the minimum, 59,632, in 1896.
The consumption in India during the last few years has apparently decreased. This is attributed to several reasons, including increased prices, restrictive measures for the suppression of the vice, the famine, changes in the habits of the people, and smuggling; but it is the conviction of all the officials concerned in handling opium that its use is not so general as formerly, and its abuse is very small. They claim that it is used chiefly by hard-working people and enables them to resist fatigue and sustain privation, and that the prevailing opinion that opium consumers are all degraded, depraved and miserable wretches, enfeebled in body and mind, is not true. It is asserted by the inspectors that the greater part of the opium sold in India is used by moderate people, who take their daily dose and are actually benefited rather than injured by it. At the same time it is admitted that the drug is abused by many, and that the habit is usually acquired by people suffering from painful diseases, who begin by taking a little for relief and gradually increase the dose until they cannot live without it.
In 1895 an unusually active agitation for the suppression of the trade resulted in the appointment of a parliamentary commission, of which Lord Brassey was chairman. They made a thorough investigation, spending several months in India, examining more than seven hundred witnesses, of which 466 were natives, and their conclusions were that it is the abuse and not the use of opium that is harmful, and "that its use among the people of India as a rule is a moderate use, that excess is exceptional and is condemned by public opinion; that the use of opium in moderation is not attended by injurious consequences, and that no extended physical or moral degradation is caused by the habit."
[XXX]
CALCUTTA, THE CAPITAL OF INDIA
Calcutta is a modern city compared with the rest of India. It has been built around old Fort William, which was the headquarters of the East India Company 200 years ago, and is situated upon the bank of the River Hoogly, one of the many mouths of the Ganges, about ninety miles from the Bay of Bengal. The current is so swift and the channel changes so frequently that the river cannot be navigated at night, nor without a pilot. The native pilots are remarkably skillful navigators, and seem to know by instinct how the shoals shift. For several miles below the city the banks of the river are lined with factories of all kinds, which have added great wealth to the empire. Old Fort William disappeared many years ago, and a new fort was erected a mile or two farther down the river, where it could command the approaches to the city, but that also is now old-fashioned, and could not do much execution if Calcutta were attacked. The fortifications near the mouth of the river are supposed to be quite formidable, but Calcutta is not a citadel, and in case of war must be defended by battle ships and other floating fortresses. It is one of the cities of India which shows a rapid growth of population, the gain during ten years having been 187,178, making the total population, by the census of 1901, 1,026,987.
The city takes its name from a village which stood in the neighborhood at the time the East India Company located there. It was famous for a temple erected in honor of Kali, the fearful wife of the god Siva, the most cruel, vindictive and relentless of all the heathen deities. The temple still stands, being more than 400 years old, and "Kali, the Black One," still sits upon her altar, hideous in appearance, gorgon-headed, wearing a necklace of human skulls and dripping with fresh blood from the morning sacrifice of sheep and goats. She brings pestilence, famine, war and sorrows and suffering of all kinds, and can only be propitiated by the sacrifice of life. Formerly nothing but human blood would satisfy her, and thousands, some claim tens of thousands, of victims have been slain before her image in that ancient temple. Human offerings were forbidden by the English many years ago, but it is believed that they are occasionally made even now when famine and plague are afflicting the people. During the late famine it is suspected that an appeal for mercy was sealed with the sacrifice of infants. Residents of the neighborhood assert that human heads, dripping with blood and decorated with flowers, have been seen in the temple occasionally since 1870. It is the only notable temple in Calcutta, and is visited by tourists, but they are allowed to go only so far and no farther, for fear that Kali might be provoked by the intrusion. It is a ghastly, filthy, repulsive place, and was formerly the southern headquarters of that organized caste of religious assassins known as Thugs.