<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></SPAN>CHAPTER IX</h2>
<p class="smaller">Great commercial value of opium—Cultivation of the
poppy—Exports of opium from India—What opium is—Preparation
of the drug—Opinions on the English monopoly
of the trade in it—Ingenious mode of smuggling opium—Efforts
of Chinese Government to check its importation—Proclamation
of the Viceroy Wang—Opinion of Li-Shi-Shen
on the properties of opium—The worst form of opium smoking—Its
introduction to Formosa by the Dutch—Depopulation
of the island—Punishments inflicted on opium-smokers—Opinions
of doctors on the effects of opium-eating or
smoking—Chinese prisoners deprived of their usual pipe—The
real danger to the poor of indulgence in opium—Evidence
of Archibald Little—The Chinese and European
pipe contrasted.</p>
<p><span class="smcap">Opium</span> has from the first been so important a
factor in the history of Western intercourse with
China, and indulgence in it is said to have had so
much to do with the physical and mental inferiority
of the modern Celestials, that it will be well to
devote a chapter to the consideration of the nature
of the drug and its effects.</p>
<div class="sidenote">CULTIVATION OF THE POPPY</div>
<p>The poppy (<i>papaver somniferum</i>), from which
the narcotic is extracted, is grown in Persia and in
China, but it is in India that it is most largely and
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</SPAN></span>
successfully cultivated. The monopoly of producing
it in her great Eastern dependency, and of
selling it to the Chinese, has always been vigorously
protected by England, and the destruction of that
monopoly when it comes will be an immense loss
to the revenue. Opium is, in fact, to the English
what tobacco is to the French, and there is no
doubt that British missionary effort has been
greatly hampered by the dread of the authorities
of any interference with their lucrative trade.</p>
<p>In the vast and fertile valley of the Ganges, the
poppy has but to be sown to yield an extensive
crop. The Patna and Benares districts are especially
prolific, and at the time of efflorescence the
air is laden with the heavy, enervating scent from
the flowers. Nothing could be much more dreary
and monotonous than the appearance of an Indian
poppy plantation, when the soil is covered with
the dried petals of the flower. Some few years
ago the tax on the exported drug, both from
Calcutta and from Bombay, amounted to considerably
over six millions of pounds. The cultivators
take their produce to the Government factories,
where it is purchased from them, and then sent to
the sea-port, so that any illicit consumption is
rendered almost impossible. The comparatively
small amount of opium consumed in India itself
is taxed by the excise officers, and the bulk of the
crop finds its way to China. It is only of late
years that native opium has competed at all with
Indian, but already it is rumoured that eventually
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</SPAN></span>
it will drive the foreign imports away altogether.
Szechuan opium is taking the place of Indian on
the Yang-tse, and Little, in his <i>Through the Yang-tse
Gorges</i>, describes vast poppy plantations in
the districts watered by the great river. He
bemoans the association of the English name
"with the introduction of the useful yet pernicious
drug," and points out that it was first brought to
China from India by the Portuguese, adding that,
in any case, the opium-pipe is most surely a
Chinese invention, for it is unknown in any other
land.</p>
<div class="sidenote">PREPARATION OF OPIUM</div>
<p>Opium in its first state is the dried juice of the
capsules before they are ripe, and is gathered in
the form of little globules of milky sap, of the
colour of amber. In India the seed is sown early
in November, and the capsules are ready for
piercing about the beginning of February, when
they are nearly as large as hen's eggs. The delicate
operation of opening the poppy-heads for the
exudation of the precious fluid is performed with
an instrument about three inches long, consisting
of four small knives bound together, the edges
looking like the teeth of a comb. The labourers
have each several of these instruments, which, when
not in use, they carry carefully in a case. The day
after the capsules have been pierced, the juice is
collected by scraping it off into a kind of scoop,
or small trowel, whence it is transferred to an
earthen pot, hanging from the collector's side
When full, these pots are carefully covered over
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</SPAN></span>
and carried to the gatherer's home. The contents
of the jar require the most careful attention for
three or four weeks to ensure proper and equal
drying. The juice is poured into a shallow plate
or dish of brass, slightly tilted, to let any watery
fluid, which would spoil the drug, drain off, and
when the process is complete, the opium is carefully
packed in jars of equal size, and taken to
the Government factories. Here it is carefully
examined, chemically tested, and weighed, to make
sure that it has not been tampered with in any
way; and, if all is well, it is placed in pots of the
regulation size: the pots are ticketed and ranged
in rows on shelves in a big room set apart for the
purpose. The rest of the preparation for export is
done in the Government laboratories, and the process
is a long and delicate one. The united crops
of vast districts are thrown into large tubs, where
they are kneaded up together till they are of the
right consistency. The material is then taken out,
divided into equal portions, and placed on small
tables, where it is manipulated, with the aid of
copper bowls of a spherical shape, into balls of an
equal weight, of about the size of a man's head.
Some workmen become so skilful that they turn
out a hundred of these balls a day. Poppy-leaves,
reduced to powder, are used to prevent the opium
from sticking together, and the balls are sprinkled
with the powder, much as chemists used to sprinkle
pills.</p>
<p>The opium thus prepared, is now placed in great
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</SPAN></span>
earthenware pans, and carried to a drying-room,
where the balls are ranged in rows of mathematical
regularity. During the drying process each sphere
is pierced every now and then with a long needle,
to prevent the fermentation, which, but for the
greatest vigilance, might set in. The pricking also
sets free the gas which would rapidly deteriorate
the value of the drug, prevents it from becoming
musty, and drives off the swarms of insects attracted
by the smell from it.</p>
<p>The cases in which the balls of opium are packed
are made of wood from the mountains of Nepaul,
which is brought to its destination in the form of
huge rafts. These rafts come down the Ganges
on sailing vessels, at the approach of which all
other crafts have to make way. Calcutta is the
port of export for Bengal, and the opium is
shipped into steamers and taken to Hong-Kong or
Shanghai.</p>
<p>As is well known, the British Government has
been very severely criticized, not only by foreigners,
but by English philanthropists, for maintaining the
opium monopoly, and the entire cessation of the
trade from India is earnestly advocated. Those
who wish to maintain things as they are, urge that
the control exercised by the authorities is a beneficent
one, and that but for it opium would be
cultivated throughout the whole of India, and its
consumption increased a thousand-fold. Time, the
great equalizer, will no doubt in the end keep up
the monopoly without any definite action on the
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</SPAN></span>
part of the English, for although nominally forbidden,
the culture of the poppy is encouraged in
China by the officials responsible for the enforcement
of the law, and immense quantities of opium
of native production is sold in the western provinces,
for a much lower price than the imported
drug.</p>
<p>The opium of Bengal is still preferred by critical
smokers, but that of Smyrna is more largely used
in medicine, for it contains a greater proportion
of morphine, and is sent in large quantities to
England, and to Belgium. The culture of the
poppy has of late years also been tried in Africa,
Australia, and even in parts of America, but so far
the opium produced in those countries does not
compete with the Asiatic to any perceptible degree.</p>
<div class="sidenote">OPIUM SMUGGLING</div>
<p>As a very little opium represents a considerable
money value, smuggling is of course practised on
a very large scale, especially in China, where the
ingenuity displayed is really extraordinary. All
along the coast, and that coast is of immense
extent, the illicit trade is briskly carried on. In
the South the smuggled drug is brought in in very
fleet vessels, of light tonnage, which easily evade
the boats of the revenue officers. The steamers
plying daily between the open ports of Hong-Kong
and Canton do much to help the traffic, for the
Celestials, who take passage on them, secrete the
precious drug about their own persons in a
manner most difficult to detect. Quantities of
opium are also often hidden beneath sham planks,
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</SPAN></span>
in the paddles of the wheels, in the pipes of the
fire-engines, and even in the clocks on board. The
struggle between the smugglers and the custom-house
officers is never-ending, and the skill displayed
in concealment on the one side and detection
on the other is so nearly equal, that it is rare
indeed for either to gain a decisive victory over
the other.</p>
<p>There is something truly pathetic in the futile
efforts made at various times by the Chinese
Government to prevent the importation of opium
into the country, and of the many viceroys of
provinces to keep it out of the districts under their
care. Here is a typical proclamation, issued by a
certain Wang in the early days of the trade in the
pernicious drug, which gives a very fair idea of
what may be called native administrative literature:</p>
<div class="sidenote">THE EVIL E-JEN</div>
<p>"Wang, Imperial Viceroy, makes known the
following: Advices have reached us to the effect
that in the capital of Kwang-Tung and the neighbouring
districts certain E-jen (barbarians from
the West) are going about distributing to the
people drugs in the form of pills made by fairies
and evil genii. It is asserted that those who have
absorbed these drugs sweat terribly all over their
bodies to such an extent that they die.</p>
<p>"I order all civil and military authorities to seek
out the distributors of these diabolical medicines,
to arrest them, and to bring them to the Court
of Justice, where I will punish them severely.
Although there are no proofs that in my own
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</SPAN></span>
district the E-jen have ventured to sell the pills in
question, I have been assured that cakes injurious
to health have been distributed to the people.
Analyzed with the aid of white of egg, these cakes
yielded a residue of maggots.... I immediately
ordered the arrest of the presumptuous merchants,
but they had already fled beyond my jurisdiction.
Fifty strokes from a bamboo-rod on the soles of
their feet would have been their punishment. The
fact is, I am very much afraid that these wretches
have gone to other provinces, there to carry on
their trade and do further mischief.</p>
<p>"From another report I learn that every day
certain E-jen throw deadly poisonous powders
upon the roads; the rain does not destroy their
potency for evil; when these powders are trodden
under foot a thin, suffocating smoke rises up from
them; there are some E-jen who carry this pernicious
substance at the end of their fingers, and
they have but to rub the head of any one they
meet with it for that person to die, his body
becoming covered with red spots.</p>
<p>"Have a care, therefore, not to allow yourselves
to be duped; I give you notice that at the gates
of the town in which I reside I have posted policemen
who examine all strangers."</p>
<p>In 1578 the celebrated Chinese savant, Li-Shi-Shen,
published his great book on the materials
employed in medicine, to which he had devoted
his whole life. In this book he gives the history
of the poppy and its cultivation, dividing that
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</SPAN></span>
history into three parts, the first relating to the
early days when its properties were little known,
that is to say, from the eighth to the eleventh
century; the second to the time when the juice
of the capsules was discovered to have medicinal
properties and became used to alleviate affections
of the stomach; and the third when opium was
imported in solid form. Li-Shi-Shen justly remarks
that it is in the capsule or seed-pod that the opium
juice is secreted, and he recommends the use of
that juice mixed with honey for certain maladies.
He makes fun of a doctor who lived before his
time, and had said that the juice of the poppy
could kill as surely as a stroke from a sword, but
dwells on the immense relief which those suffering
from rheumatism and asthma had obtained from
its use. This sage of the sixteenth century adds,
that in Pekin opium pills are used to arouse sexual
passion. There is nothing surprising in this assertion
to those who know the Chinese and their
fondness for such queer diet as swallows' nests,
ginger, the fins of sharks, sea-urchins, etc., because
they think they stimulate the senses. It must,
however, be added in justice to the Celestials, that
they are far less sensual than their neighbours, the
Japanese, and this is no small praise.</p>
<p>Though Li-Shi-Shen was right in laughing at
the doctor whose assertion is quoted above, the
abuse of the newly-discovered drug of opium did
cause a great many deaths, and in the seventeenth
century many Imperial edicts were issued
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</SPAN></span>
forbidding its use, but so deeply rooted had the love
of it become, that these fulminations against it
were powerless to prevent its importation. The
mortality was doubled when the Chinese learnt
to mix opium with Hashish, or the potent drug
known in India as bhang, prepared from hemp.</p>
<div class="sidenote">A PERNICIOUS MIXTURE</div>
<p>The fatal knowledge was imparted to the
Celestials in 1625 by some Batavians who had
come to Formosa, then in the possession of the
Dutch, who were engaged in building Fort Zealandia,
near the present Taiwan. The pernicious
compound is smoked through a pipe fixed on to
a bamboo handle, and those who indulge in it are
thrown into a state of delirium, which generally
lasts for a whole night. The results in the island
of Formosa were immediate and tragic, for all who
had once enjoyed the voluptuous dreams induced
by the double narcotic, conceived such a passion
for the poison that no restrictive measures had any
effect. The Dutch, alarmed at the rapid depopulation
of the island, did their best to remedy the
evil, but it was all of no use, the union of opium
and Hashish was more devastating than an epidemic
of cholera or small-pox would have been.
If a native were condemned to the bastinado he
would beg to be allowed to smoke his pipe whilst
the punishment was being inflicted, and the blows
from the bamboo fell all unheeded on his shoulders.
According to some accounts it was this demoralization
of the natives which led the Dutch to abandon
Formosa, whilst others say they were driven out
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</SPAN></span>
in 1866 by the Chinese. In any case it seems
pretty certain that the worst form of opium smoking
began during the Dutch occupation of Formosa,
and was thence introduced to the mainland. It
is consoling to know that Chinese historians
attribute to the Dutch, not the English, the introduction
of the most pernicious of all the various
forms of opium smoking.</p>
<p>Inspired probably more by hatred of the
foreigners who became enriched by the importation
of the drug than by any feeling of humanity,
the Chinese authorities continued for two whole
centuries to inflict all manner of punishments on
those who smoked opium, no matter in what form.
The offenders were fined, thrown into prison, compelled
to wear the cangue, or heavy wooden collar,
fitting closely round the neck and preventing the
victim from obtaining any rest, or received a varying
number of strokes from the bamboo on the
mouth or on the soles of the feet. Now, however,
all is changed, for the tax imposed on opium brings
wealth to the coffers of the Government, and
although smoking is still nominally forbidden, it
is in reality encouraged throughout the length and
breadth of the land.</p>
<div class="sidenote">CHINESE PRISONS</div>
<p>Opinion is very much divided as to the effect of
opium on those who indulge in it. When I was
in Indo-China I was only able to consult English
doctors on the subject, and it was impossible not
to feel that they were necessarily prejudiced in
favour of the drug, bearing in mind the great
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</SPAN></span>
revenues reaped by their Government from its
importation. I was assured by one of them that
its use in moderation was perfectly harmless, and
that an old confirmed smoker if suddenly deprived
of it, does not suffer any ill effects. This, by the
way, is a very important point. My informants
cited cases of ardent consumers of opium being
thrown into prison, where such a thing as a pipe
was not to be had; yet instead of suffering from
the deprivation, the victims retained their usual
health, and were not nearly so much affected as
sailors would be who could not have the tobacco
to which they are accustomed, or drunkards cut
off from every beverage but pure water. It will
be remembered that after the suppression of the
Commune in France in 1871, many of the insurgents
sent to Brest died at once from the sudden
loss of the stimulants they had become accustomed
to. More hardened or more philosophical, who
shall say which? the Chinese prisoners deprived
of their best-beloved pastime resign themselves
without a murmur, though there is no doubt that
they suffer frightfully from the terrible conditions
in the gaols, coming out, if they come out alive,
mere skeletons. A "Celestial" place of detention
is indeed a Gehenna of horror and misery. It is
only fair to add, however, that a case occurred of
a man, who before he was sent to prison had never
missed his pipe for thirty years, yet he gained
three pounds in weight during the first three weeks
of his detention.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>Amongst the poorer classes in China it is really
the time and money wasted on the drug which are
of more importance to the bread-winner than the
bad effect on his health. At the best of times the
wages earned by a Chinese labourer are extremely
low, and when he takes to smoking, his wife and
children suffer much, as do those of drunkards in
Europe. Archibald Little, who knows the Celestials
as well perhaps as any other Englishman, says
that during his "forty years' stay in the country
and extensive intercourse with every class, he has
met with few natives seriously injured by the drug.
To the well-nourished Chinaman," he adds, "his
evening pipes are more a pastime, a means of
passing the time pleasantly in a state of placid
inactivity dear to the Oriental, while the merchant
conducts many of his best bargains over the pipe,
much as negotiations are often conducted over a
bottle of wine at home.... It is when," adds this
keen observer, "a Chinese mandarin succumbs to
the opium-pipe and spends most of his time on
the opium-couch that the mischief is serious, for
rapacity and mis-government go on unchecked,"<SPAN name="FNanchor_5" id="FNanchor_5"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</SPAN>
it being all but impossible to get such a man
removed from his post. He has, say the natives,
the 'Yin,' their name for the passionate craving
for the drug, corresponding with what is called
dipsomania by European doctors, and there is no
hope for him; he will indulge his passion till he
dies. Not unjustly have many medical men called
attention to the indulgence in wine and brandy
of the European residents in China, especially in
Hong-Kong, and suggested that the missionaries
should begin their reforms at home, and before
inveighing against Chinese vices they should
endeavour to win converts to sobriety amongst
their own fellow-countrymen.</p>
<div class="footnote">
<p><SPAN name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5"></SPAN><SPAN href="#FNanchor_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></SPAN> <i>Through the Yang-tse Gorges</i>, p. 194.</p>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="sidenote">AN OPIUM-SMOKER</div>
<div class="fig_center" style="width: 699px;"><SPAN name="Fig_42"></SPAN><br/>
<ANTIMG src="images/fig42.png" width-obs="699" height-obs="445" alt="" />
<div class="fig_caption">FIG. 42.—AN OPIUM-SMOKER.</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>In discussing the evil effects of opium-smoking,
the very great value of the drug as a medicine is
liable to be forgotten, yet the lives of thousands
have been saved by its use under proper control.
It has absolutely no rival in its power of giving
needful sleep in illness and in relieving pain, whilst
in many diseases its effect is of the greatest possible
advantage to the patient.</p>
<div class="sidenote">THE 'BLACK SMOKE'</div>
<p>Dr. Ayres of Hong-Kong relates several experiments
he made in his own person to test the
truth of the theory that the poisonous qualities of
opium evaporate when it is smoked, but remain
active when it is eaten. He began by absorbing
a very small quantity per day till he could take
as much as half-an-ounce, and says that he experienced
sensations so intensely agreeable that
he realized what the suffering of deprivation must be
when the habit of opium-eating is once confirmed.
He then tried smoking a pipe of the prepared
drug every day, without feeling any ill effects whatever;
there was, he declares, absolutely no difference
in his pulse or in his temperature. It was exactly
the same with several Europeans whom he persuaded
to follow his example. "I counted the
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</SPAN></span>
throbs of their pulse, I took their temperature, and
there was absolutely nothing abnormal about either,
although I had made them smoke twelve pipes
each." This does but prove that the effects of
opium are different with different constitutions,
and that there are some who can take it even in
large quantities with impunity; but for all that the
horrors of the so-called black smoke, and of the
opium dens of China can hardly be exaggerated,
even the Celestials themselves admitting that the
effects of the drug are injurious to health, and
warp the better nature of those who indulge in it
to excess; but, as already remarked, its price is
still so high that only the wealthy can afford it
in quantities likely to be hurtful. It is as difficult
for a Chinese workman to get opium as it would
be for a French peasant to buy champagne, or
an English apprentice to indulge in port-wine.</p>
<div class="fig_center" style="width: 366px;"><SPAN name="Fig_43"></SPAN><br/>
<ANTIMG src="images/fig43.png" width-obs="366" height-obs="401" alt="" />
<div class="fig_caption">FIG. 43.—OPIUM PIPES.</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="sidenote">SOCIABLE SMOKERS</div>
<p>Moreover, it is even now the exception for rich
Celestials to yield themselves body and soul to the
temptation. One opium-smoker goes to call on
another, and the two indulge in a friendly pipe
together as they chat about the weather, or the
state of trade, or perhaps arrange a marriage for
a son or a daughter; but the host does not expect
to see his guest fall asleep and roll on the ground
like a pig, any more than a European now-a-days
expects his visitor to succumb to drink, and slip
under the table as was so common an occurrence
at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The
ordinary opium-smoker does not light his pipe to
induce sleep, but just to enable him to forget his
troubles for a time, and no De Quincey or Sylvestre
de Sacy is needed to prove that a man in rags
may indulge in happy dreams of prosperity without
leaving some cheap and dingy tavern. Still
we cannot fail to contrast the ugly Chinese apparatus
with all its paraphernalia, including the horribly
smelling lamp needed to keep it alight, with the
simple European pipe, so easily filled to begin
with, and so readily replenished. The lover of
opium seeks to be alone; he has no desire for the
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</SPAN></span>
company of even his dearest friend in his den;
but the smoker of the comparatively innocent weed
delights in gathering his comrades about him, and
there is nothing in the wide world more provocative
of good fellowship than the fumes of tobacco.</p>
<div class="fig_center" style="width: 373px;"><SPAN name="Fig_44"></SPAN><br/>
<ANTIMG src="images/fig44.png" width-obs="373" height-obs="200" alt="" />
<div class="fig_caption">FIG. 44.—REQUISITES FOR OPIUM-SMOKING.</div>
</div>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</SPAN></span></p>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />
1 of 2
2 of 2
Previous
Next
Update Required
To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.