In China there is the same popular demand for opium that exists in Europe for alcohol and tobacco. The use of opium does not date very far back, and it is probably the only innovation that China has adopted from the West. The importation of opium from India into China amounted in 1798 to 300 tons, in 1863 to 3,000 tons, in 1866 to 3,903, and since then the increase has been still more rapid.[1]
Opium is chewed, or smoked in a pipe, the latter mode of using it being the more common. The bowl of a long-stemmed pipe is filled with the drug, and, as the opium swells and adheres to the pipe, a needle is in constant use to keep open an air-passage. As the drug burns with difficulty, the smoker must have a light ready at hand for use whenever his pipe goes out.
The number of opium-smokers is considerable, but the great majority of them use the drug only in moderation. The wealthiest mandarins, the most intelligent merchants, smoke opium, as do the humblest coolies. The use of opium is like the use of tobacco among ourselves; nor does it produce any greater mischief, at least among the well-to-do classes; but with the common people it is different. There are establishments specially devoted to opium—smoking-places where, for a trifling sum of money, one may gratify this appetite. Rarely does a smoker leave before he is fully under the influence of the drug, just as the drunkard does not quit the gin-shop until he is fuddled. So used, opium is certainly a dangerous poison, and, according to the testimony of all travelers, the wretches who daily commit such excesses speedily fall to a fearful state of degradation, both moral and physical. Pale, wan, gaunt, shambling along with difficulty, they must have recourse to artificial stimulation in order to regain a part of their wasted energy. Still the injurious effects of opium have in all probability been very much exaggerated: the number of deaths caused by the abuse of the drug is not very great; and many of those who smoke it, even in considerable quantity, retain unimpaired their mental faculties. True, the digestive functions rarely escape impairment. Dyspepsia and general emaciation are the result of this sad habit; but, however that may be, China is not yet by any means on the brink of ruin, and, if she is in a state of decadence, the blame does not attach to opium.
Opium has its antidote: just as we can produce sleep, so too can we produce sleeplessness, by the employment of a mind-poison whose effects are diametrically opposite to those of the other. The antidote of opium is coffee. One hundred years ago coffee was almost unknown, but now there is hardly another beverage that is so widely distributed. Every one has it in his power to judge of the effects of coffee. For some persons it is a stimulus necessary for the performance of intellectual work. In others it produces a painful state of insomnia:
- ↑ The native production of opium has of late years attained very considerable proportions.—Trans.
