  Alcock, Sir Rutherford, 4, 15, 129. London: Printed by W. H. Allen & Co., 13, Waterloo Place, Pall Mall. S.W. Footnotes: [1] April 2, 1883. [2] The insinuations of Mr. Lock in the Contemporary are simply beneath contempt. [3] Soo Sung, a poet of the eleventh century, says the poppy was grown everywhere. [4] Com. East Indian Finance 1870, Qu. 5865. [5] Ibid., Qu. 5855. [6] A.D. 25-220. [7] In a work on China published 1857. [8] A fee of one dollar was regularly left by the smugglers with the commander of the vessel, to be called for by the preventive officer. [9] Don Sinibaldo, however, attributes this removal to the exactions of the Portuguese douanier. See p. 6 of his pamphlet on opium. [10] Capt. Hall’s Nemesis, p. 113. [11] Nemesis, p. 115. [12] See Opium, a paper by F. C. Danvers, 1881. [13] One tael silver was nominally equivalent to 1,000 cash; the silver had now risen to be worth 16,000 cash. [14] Tang, the Governor of Canton, himself dealt largely in opium. See Nemesis, pp. 84, 113. [15] A guild of Chinese traders at Canton. [16] Lord Macartney placidly allowed his interpreter to style him “this red-bristled barbarian tribute-bearer.” [17] Don Sinibaldo says (p. 8) that opium not being expressly mentioned, “fait partie des articles non spÉcifiÉs, qui sont tenus de payer un droit d’entrÉe de cinq pour cent”; but surely this is a mistake. [18] We can well believe with Capt. Hall that “whatever part the question arising out of the opium trade may have afterwards borne in the complication of difficulties, there is little doubt that the first germ of them all was developed at the moment when the general trade with China became free.”—Nemesis, p. 79. [19] Sir J. Davis, Dec. 21, 1855. [20] £650,000. [21] Mr. Lay, in a memorandum dated April 1844, gave it as his opinion that the difficulty of admitting opium rested only in the thought that it would be a violation of decorum for His Imperial Majesty to legalize a thing once so strongly condemned. He therefore advocated a change of name. [22] Sir G. Bonham, April 10, 1851. [23] Tael = 6s. 8d. [24] The French took part in the expedition in order to obtain satisfaction for the murder of a missionary in 1856, so that in their case it was strictly a missionary war. [25] New Kwang, Tangchow, Taiwan (Formosa), Swatow, and Kungchow (Hainan). [26] Mr. Lay, secretary to Lord Elgin’s mission. [27] Lord Elgin had been instructed by Lord Clarendon to ascertain whether the Chinese Government would revoke its prohibitions on opium. “Whether,” says Lord Clarendon, “the legalization would tend to augment the trade may be doubtful, as it seems now to be carried to the full extent of the demand in China with the sanction and connivance of the local authorities.” [28] It was currently reported in North China that this officer received 2,000 taels from English merchants for memorializing the Emperor. The edict did benefit the foreign trade at first. [29] Sir Rutherford Alcock, Nineteenth Century, Dec. 1881, p. 861. [30] From sixteen taels at Chinkiang to eighty-four taels at Foochow and Amoy. [31] Ichang, Wenchow, Wuhu, and Pakhoi. [32] Sept. 13, 1876. [33] Dr. Moore, The Other Side of the Opium Question, p. 85. [34] Sir Rutherford Alcock, Journal of Society of Arts, p. 220, b. [35] Dr. Moore (p. 84) quotes Mr. Gardner’s opinion to this effect. [36] Times, Jan. 26, 1881. To the same effect is the evidence of Don Sinibaldo, who says (p. 3), “On prÉtend que l’opium produit chez lui une dÉlicieuse ivresse, un doux sommeil, une vive surexcitation qui deviennent nÉcessaires Á l’existence, et qu’on ne peut obtenir qu’en augmentant progressivement la dose journaliÈre. Pour moi, j’ai souvent fumÉ de l’opium, et je n’ai ÉprouvÉ rien de semblable; un grand nombre d’EuropÉens qui avaient fait la mÊme Épreuve m’ont assurÉ qu’elle avait eu pour eux les mÊmes rÉsultats que pour moi.” Perhaps a remark of Dr. Moore (p. 34) may explain these statements. He says, “If the opium-pipe is smoked as the tobacco-pipe is smoked, the effects are very inconsiderable as compared with the results when the novice has attained to perfection in his practice”—i.e. can pass the smoke through his lungs. [37] Colonel Tod, in his book on the Rajpoots, draws a strong picture of the evil effects of opium consumption among them. Of this Sir Henry Lawrence, in a letter to Sir John Kaye, 1854, says, “There is little, if any, truth in it.” [38] Comm. on E. I. Finance, 1871, evidence of Sir Cecil Beadon. Dr. Birdwood, in a letter to the Times, Jan. 20, 1882, says: “The Rajpoots, though they are all from youth upward literally saturated with opium, are one of the finest, most truthful, and bravest people in the world. The same may be said of the Sikhs.” [39] The Other Side of the Opium Question, pp. 13, 42. [40] Similarly the Hurkarah, who carries letters and runs messages in India, provided with a small piece of opium, a bag of rice and a lump of bread, will perform incredible journeys.—Sir Rutherford Alcock, Paper before Society of Arts, p. 223. [41] The extract of hemp drunk as a decoction or swallowed as a drug. See Report on Excise in the Punjaub, 1880-1881, sect. 24. [42] Moore, p. 90. [43] A sear = 2 lbs. [44] See Memorandum by Sir Charles Aitchison, passim, especially App. to Report, p. 13. [45] Report by Mr. Weidemann, deputy-commissioner in Henzada, in Parliamentary paper relating to opium in British Burmah, sect. 11. [46] “British Burmah,” an article in the Times for Aug. 20, 1882. [47] See a note appended to Sir Charles Aitchison’s Report by Mr. C. Bernard, officiating Chief Commissioner in British Burmah. [48] Times, Aug. 20, 1882. [49] Memorandum, sect. 9. [50] Cf. the havoc wrought by the “blue flame,” introduced by Europeans, among the Red Indians of America. [51] Memorandum, sect. 4. [52] Memorandum, sect. 13. [53] Bringing in a revenue of £175,000. [54] Dr. Christlieb. [55] Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, p. 5. [56] Dr. Moore, p. 11, 48, 55. [57] Ibid., p. 56. [58] July 12, 1883. This has now been further reduced. [59] Dr. Christlieb says 1,033,000 acres—an obvious exaggeration. [60] The districts of Indore, Bhopal, &c. [61] Mr. Storrs Turner himself, the secretary of the Society, allows that this is a difficult part of the question. See his article in the Nineteenth Century, Feb. 1882. [62] Mr. Brereton (p. 74) estimates the amount consumed in California alone to be worth £100,000. [63] Mr. Acheson, in a memorandum to the Custom inspectorate from Canton, says it amounts to 5,000 piculs. [64] This, however, does not fairly represent the difference, as Indian opium yields twenty per cent. more extract. [65] Brereton, p. 139. [66] Financial Statement, 1882, sect. 172. [67] The Right Hon. J. Whittaker Ellis. [68] Dr. Christlieb, a German professor, says 400,000; but Dr. Medhurst, a medical man resident for years in China, with all his life-long experience and knowledge would not even hazard a conjecture as to the annual death-rate. Dr. Lockhart says, “It is impossible to say what is the number of such victims either among the higher or lower classes.” Ait Varius, negat Scaurus. Utri creditis, Quirites? [69] Don Sinibaldo (p. 11). To prohibit opium, he says, because some people kill themselves with it, is as bad as if we prohibited razors because some people cut their throats with them. He also says that he considers the number of deaths by opium in China to be less in proportion than the number of deaths self-inflicted by firearms in France—i.e. that they do not number 3,500 in all. [70] Swinhoe’s Campaign of 1860, p. 248. [71] Dr. Ayres, Friend of China, 1878, p. 217. [72] Comm. on E. I. Finance, Q. 5980. Mr. Winchester says: “I should say the balance was in favour of the relief given by the stimulant over the actual misery created by its abuse.” Also Dr. Moore, p. 86. [73] Dr. Ayres, Friend of China, 1878, p. 217. [74] Dr. Myers, Health of Takow, p. 8. A recent article in the Times, from a Singapore correspondent, fully bears this out. He says that all allow the Chinese of the Straits Settlements to be the finest specimens of their race, and yet these very Chinese, a million in number, smoke 12,000 chests of opium a year; and the deaths from opium registered in the annual medical report were last year five. [75] Mr. Brereton (p. 8) says: “I have known numbers, certainly not less than 500 in all, who have smoked opium from their earliest days, young men, middle-aged, and men of advanced years, some of them probably excessive smokers; but I have never observed any symptoms of decay in one of them.” Again: “I have tried to find the victims of the dreadful drug, but have never succeeded.” [76] From a letter to the London and China Telegraph, June 19, 1882. [77] The estimate of one million given in a preceding note includes the Chinese population of the neighbouring islands and of Cochin China. [78] Dr. Myers: “It is surprising how few among the hard-working class indulge to excess; and case after case will be met with, even in the lowest ranks of life, of men who have smoked regularly from ten to twenty or thirty years, and show little or no signs of mental or physical deterioration.” [79] Dr. Myers, Health of Takow, p. 10. [80] Correspondent to North China Herald. See Brereton, p. 135. [81] Of this the Indian Government is only responsible for 40,000 chests. The rest is Malwa opium. [82] It may be said that those who smoke Indian opium are the richer classes, and therefore more prone to excess; but, on the other hand, the native drug is more deleterious. [83] Health of Takow, p. 6. [84] Ibid., p. 5. [85] Mr. Cooper’s coolies carried him twenty miles a day for months. [86] Coleridge. [87] Aug. 19, 1882. [88] “Most remarkable for industry and usefulness.”—Sir F. Halliday. [89] See Johnston’s Chemistry of Common Life. [90] “Stimulants are weak narcotics: narcotics are strong stimulants.”—Modern Thought, Aug. 1882. [91] Sir George Birdwood calls this the greatest temperance triumph of any age or nation. [92] It has only recently been discovered that the aborigines of Australia also have a narcotic of their own, which has qualities akin to opium and tobacco. [93] Capt. Hall’s Nemesis. [94] Opium Question Solved, p. 15. Cf. Sir Charles Trevelyan, Comm. on E. I. Finance, Qu. 1532-40. [95] And in this connection it might occur to us that if, in the wake of our civilization, instead of the “blue ruin” which we gave him, we had brought to the Red Indian the marvellous gift of opium, “that noble race and brave” would not have “passed away,” but be still surviving to smoke the calumet of peace with the divine opium in the bowl. [96] Parliamentary Papers 1842-56, No. 26. [97] Letter to Sir W. Parker, 1843. He adds that “personally he had not been able to discover a single instance of its decidedly bad effects.” [98] China and the Chinese. [99] “No one,” says Mr. Gardner, “is maddened by smoking opium to crimes of violence, nor does the habit of smoking increase the criminal returns or swell the number of prison inmates.” [100] Dr. Pereira, Materia Medica. Dr. Andrew Clarke estimated on one occasion that seven-tenths of the patients in St. Bartholomew’s Hospital owed their ill-health to alcohol. [101] Dr. Tanner’s Practice of Medicine. Dr. Moore. For an interesting comparison between opium and alcohol, we may refer our readers to De Quincey’s Confessions of an Opium Eater. [102] Twenty-five drops of laudanum = 1 grain of opium ? 8,000 drops = 320 grains; but Dr. Myers tells us that 2 grains of opium swallowed = 1 mace (58 grains) smoked, so that De Quincey took what was equivalent to 160 mace smoked. [103] Theodore Gautier maintains that “the love of the ideal is so innate in man that he attempts, as far as he can, to relax the ties which bind body to soul; and as the means of being in an ecstatic state are not in the power of all, one drinks for gaiety, another smokes for forgetfulness, a third devours momentary madness.” [104] It is indeed said of Ennius that he sought inspiration in the flowing bowl; that he never “Nisi potus ad arma But then, as Praed says, “poets tell confounded lies,” and this may be one of them. Coleridge, in later times, is said to have sought the same inspiration from opium; and poems like “Kubla Khan” testify that he found it. [105] Enough, as Mr. Brereton says, to form a devil’s punchbowl huge enough for all the population of the British Isles to swim in at the same time. [106] Dr. Norman Kerr in a paper read at the Social Science Congress. [107] “Any serious attempt to check the evil must originate with the people themselves,” said the Chinese Commissioners to Sir Thomas Wade. [108] To chastise the insolent barbarian, as Lord Palmerston put it to his electors at Tiverton. [109] A similar proposal to establish a Russian protectorate over the members of the Greek Church in Turkey is thus spoken of by Lord Clarendon: “No sovereign, having a due regard for his own dignity and independence, could admit proposals which conferred upon a foreign and more powerful sovereign a right of protection over his own subjects.” [110] pp. 35-37. [111] From the latest Parliamentary Paper, containing the correspondence between the Indian and English Governments on the subject of the negotiations with China, it appears (sects. 43-50) that neither the British nor Indian Government has any objection to the ratification of the Chefoo Convention. The difficulty is to get the other Powers to agree. [112] Sir Evelyn Baring. Financial Statement on India for 1882. [113] A late medical missionary. [114] Brereton, p. 50. It appears, however, that there are 6,000 Christians already in Japan, the result of fourteen years’ preaching. [115] Intense dislike to foreigners and foreign intercourse was an ever-present reason for condemning a drug which, more than anything else, kept the gates of the empire ajar to the “foreign devils.”—Opium Question Solved. [116] Comm. on E. I. Finance 1871, Q. 5831. [117] The same who has lately been in correspondence with the leaders of the Anti-Opium League. [118] Comm. on E. I. Finance, Q. 5834. [119] Ibid., Q. 5817. [120] Story of the Fuh-kien Mission, p. 188. [121] Capt. Hall, Nemesis, p. 375. [122] Story of the Fuh-kien Mission, p. 252. [123] Times, Aug. 22, 1882. [124] Times, Aug. 22, 1882. [125] Times, Aug. 22, 1882. [126] Brereton, p. 68. [127] See minute by Sir William Muir, Feb. 1868. [128] Speech at Newcastle, 1880. [129] Malwa bears a duty of 650, but the consistence of Malwa chest is 90-95, of Bengal 70-75. [130] Owing to bad crops the revenue from opium has considerably diminished in the last two years, but the present (1884) crop promises exceedingly well. [131] 1882. [132] Consul Medhurst, 1872. [133] Sir Rutherford Alcock’s paper before the Society of Arts, p. 225. [134] Justin McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, vol. i., p. 181. [135] Parliamentary Paper, 1882. [136] The organ of the Society. [137] Sir Wilfrid Lawson on the Egyptian War. Transcriber’s Note: Punctuation has been corrected without note. |
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