We have
not judged China as a nation from the inspection of a few low
opium-shops, or from the half dozen extreme cases of which we may have
been personally cognizant, or which we may have gleaned from the
reports of medical missionaries in charge of hospitals for native
patients. We do not deny that opium is a curse, in so far as a large
number of persons would be better off without it; but comparing its
use as a stimulant with that of alcoholic liquors in the West, we are
bound to admit that the comparison is very much to the disadvantage of
the latter. Where opium kills its hundreds, gin counts its victims by
thousands; and the appalling scenes of drunkenness so common to a
European city are of the rarest occurrence in China. In a country
where the power of corporal punishments is placed by law in the hands
of the husband, wife-beating is unknown; and in a country where an
ardent spirit can be supplied to the people at a low price, _delirium
tremens_ is an untranslateable term. Who ever sees in China a tipsy
man reeling about a crowded thoroughfare, or lying with his head in a
ditch by the side of some country road? The Chinese people are
naturally sober, peaceful, and industrious; they fly from
intoxicating, quarrelsome samshoo, to the more congenial opium-pipe,
which soothes the weary brain, induces sleep, and invigorates the
tired body.

In point of fact, we have failed to find but a tithe of that real vice
which cuts short so many brilliant careers among men who, with all the
advantages of education and refinement, are euphemistically spoken of
as addicted to the habit of "lifting their little fingers." Few
Chinamen seem really to love wine, and opium, by its very price, is
beyond the reach of the blue-coated masses. In some parts, especially
in Formosa, a great quantity is smoked by the well-paid chair-coolies,
to enable them to perform the prodigies of endurance so often required
of them. Two of these fellows will carry an ordinary Chinaman, with
his box of clothes, thirty miles in from eight to ten hours on the
hottest days in summer. They travel between five and six miles an
hour, and on coming to a stage, pass without a moment's delay to the
place where food and opium are awaiting their arrival. After smoking
their allowance and snatching as much rest as the traveller will
permit, they start once more upon the road; and the occupant of the
chair cannot fail to perceive the lightness and elasticity of their