roprietors of these dens took the enforcement most seriously. Some of
them went immediately into other lines of business; others made their
places over into tea-houses.

[Illustration: IN AN OPIUM DEN, SHANGHAI]

[Illustration: OPIUM SMOKING]

So at Shanghai the Chinese warfare on the "foreign smoke" was waged
earnestly and effectively in the native city. The Chinese authorities
closed the dens--permanently, it seems fair to believe. And the only
result of their heroic action,--and it is an heroic action to suppress a
prosperous and thoroughly established branch of commerce in any city,--the
only result was that the opium business went over to the adjoining city of
the foreigners, who gladly accepted it, and took the money which had
formerly been spent in the native city. The foreigners live wholly outside
of and above Chinese law. They have their own strips of land, their own
courts, their own local government, all guaranteed to them by the treaties
which China has, at one time or another, been forced to sign. When the
Chinese first proposed to stamp out opium, these foreigners laughed, and
talked about the chronic insincerity of the Chinese government. When the
yellow men did stamp out opium in that native city a mile or so away,
these foreigners said that it would not be fair to the holders of licenses
to close down in the settlement. As I have had occasion to say before, the
Chinese are not fools. They grasped the significance of the situation, and
spoke out frankly. The local mandarins protested to the settlement
council. The native newspapers called attention to it. And all this clear
insight into an extraordinary situation and the frank comment on it were
communicated, by the routes and the means which I have described earlier
in this chapter, to the fifty or seventy-five million Chinese who are
directly influenced by conditions at Shanghai. Now, in the light of these
facts, in the light of what they see and know, it is time to ask, and to
ask with feeling--How can you hope to make those fifty to seventy-five
million Chinamen believe that our civilization, with its science, and its
whisky, and its keen grasp on "revenue," and its contradictory and
confusing teachings of Christianity, is superior to their civilization?
And if they do not believe that our civilization is superior, how long do
you suppose they will endure the treatment they receive from us? As time
rolls on, there will be more "Boxer" uprisings