,000 in gold. It is against the law to
permit women or children to enter the smoking-dens, and a clause to this
effect is printed on the license as a condition in granting it; yet when
Captain Borisragon, the chief of police, was asked how many regular women
inmates were in the dens, he replied, in writing, that there were at least
3,200 women so kept, and doubtless a great many more who did not appear
on his records. When the tax and license department was asked why this
clause was not enforced, the reply was made, without the slightest attempt
at excuse or explanation, that when a license was issued to the keeper of
an "opium brothel" the clause prohibiting women inmates was erased.

These curious facts combine to present an appearance familiar to one who
has studied the municipal protection of vice in this country. It is asking
too much of human credulity to expect one to believe that this clause was
regularly erased for nothing. But apart from what individual graft there
may have been in it, that $70,000 in revenue was an item not to be lightly
given up by the hard-headed municipal council. And the amount of money put
into circulation by the patrons of these dens was also an attractive item,
as Shanghai sees things. The prevailing opinion among the foreigners of
"the settlement" was simply and flatly that the settlement could not
afford to close the dens. The leading English newspaper hastened to defend
the sordid attitude of the council by explaining that, as the licenses
were issued for a year, they had no right to close the places, at least
before the spring of 1908.

The interesting and significant fact is that while this miserable
condition of affairs was allowed to drag along in the international
settlement, where the white men rule, the Chinese native city, immediately
adjoining, was strictly enforcing the anti-opium edicts. The Chinese
authorities went about the enforcement in a thoroughly effective manner.
The date set for the closing of the dens was May 22, 1907. There was some
fear that the closing down might precipitate a riot, and, accordingly, the
authorities took measures to keep the populace in hand. Chinese soldiers
were placed on guard at the places where crowds would be most likely to
gather, the dens were quietly closed, padlocked, and the shutters put up;
and red signs, calling attention to the imperial edict prohibiting opium,
were pasted up on doors or shutters. It was quite evident that the
p