e 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