ceptible change in the
situation. There are now fewer refuges than formerly in Shansi Province,
for none of the missions is fully recruited as yet, after the terrible
set-back of 1900.

The opium-cure faker in China, as in the United States and Europe, usually
sells morphia under another name. Dr. Edwards, the author of "Fire and
Sword in Shansi," last year spent five weeks in travelling northwest of
T'ai Yuan-fu, and reported finding a great many men employed in selling
so-called anti-opium medicines. The demand for cures existed everywhere.
Now that the popular sentiment is setting in so strongly against the opium
habit, the Chinese are peculiarly easy prey for these rascals. They have
no conception of medicine as it is practiced in Western countries, and
eagerly take whatever is offered to them in the guise of a "cure." The
following, told to me by an Englishman who lives in the province,
illustrates this:

"There is a lot of mischief being done in Shansi just now by men who have
bought drugs in Tientsin, are selling them at random, and making a good
thing for themselves. I was travelling one day and was taken violently
ill, and I happened to reach a place where I knew a man who had some
drugs, so I sent for him and asked him to bring me some medicine. He came
along with three bottles, none of which was labelled. He could not tell me
what any one of them contained. He said they were all good for
stomach-ache, and proposed to mix the three up and give me a good, strong
dose. It is needless to say I refused. That man is running a proper
establishment and making a lot of money on the drugs he sells, and that
is all he knows about the business."

The upshot of my investigations and inquiries in Shansi was that the
anti-opium edicts were being enforced to the letter. This conclusion
reached, I naturally looked about to find the man behind the enforcement.
Judging from the work done, he should prove worth seeing. Further
inquiries drew out the information that he was one of the three rulers of
the province, with the title of provincial judge, and that his name was
Ting Pao Chuen.

Calling upon a prominent Chinese official is, to a plain, democratic
person, rather an impressive undertaking. The Rev. Mr. Sowerby had kindly
volunteered to act as interpreter, and him I impressed for instructor and
guide through the mazes of official etiquette. It was arranged that I
should call at Mr. Sowerby's compound at a quarter to fou