imilar testimony
is borne by a recent medical report of the Straits Settlements,[76]
wherein, under the head "poisons," it appears that there were from
alcoholic poisoning thirty-nine deaths, of which twenty-six were
Europeans, three Chinese, one Malay, nine Indians; while from opium only
five in all--a result all the more significant as there are at least
300,000 Chinese in the Straits Settlements,[77] and only about 4,000
Europeans, including the military. Dr. Hobson, another medical missionary,
and as such entirely averse to the trade, says: "Opium-smoking is not
nearly so fatal to life as spirit-drinking is with us; its use is even
compatible with longevity." It is very common to hear Chinese acknowledge
that they have smoked opium for ten, twenty, or thirty years. Dr. Hobson
mentions one case in which the smoker began at nineteen, and smoked for
fifty-one years.[78] Further evidence is surely unnecessary to prove that
opium-smoking is not necessarily, nor even commonly, destructive of life.
Even opium-eating, _a far worse vice_, for it "sets up an incessant and
cumulative craving, so that a rapid increase of dose is necessary"--not
even opium-eating is inevitably fatal, as the case of the Rajpoots proves.
De Quincey, as is well known, took 8,000 drops of laudanum a day for some
time, which is equivalent to thirty-two grains, and two grains of opium
swallowed are equal in effects to fifty-eight grains (one mace) smoked,
three mace being a smoker's usual allowance.[79]

Though we cannot state for certain the number of deaths from opium, we can
form a rough estimate of the number of smokers supplied by the Indian
drug; and this has been done by Mr. Hart, Inspector-General of Chinese
Customs. But his figures need some modification, inasmuch as he puts the
number of chests imported at 100,000, whereas the number, for reasons
given above, certainly does not exceed 85,000 all told. Moreover, he
reckons the population of China at 300,000,000--surely a low estimate. We
may safely assume it to be 350,000,000. Again, in his estimate of the
native drug he errs on the other side, for the amount of the native drug
produced is probably much more than 100,000 chests, and may be even four
times as much.[80] Mr. Hart's figures, then, thus amended, give the
following results:--Indian opium imported to China amounts to 85,000[81]
chests at most = 8,500,000 catties (1-1/3 lb.). Provision opium, when
boiled down and converted into prepar