etting an
unfortunate example in the matter of opium. In several of the concessions
there are thousands of Chinese traders who have crowded in the white man's
territory, in order to make a living. These Chinese districts demand their
opium, and they have always been allowed to have it. The opium shops and
dens are licensed, as are our saloons, and the resulting revenue is
cheerfully accepted by the various municipalities. When the Chinese
officials set out to fight opium last winter and spring, they asked the
foreign consuls to cooperate with them. This could be no more than a
friendly request, for the concessions are foreign soil, that have passed
wholly out of China's control; but it was obviously of no use to close the
dens of the native city if smokers could continue to gratify their desire
by simply walking down the road.

This request bothered the consuls. The Chinese had adroitly placed them in
a difficult position. A failure to cooperate would look bad; but revenue
is revenue, on the Chinese Coast as elsewhere. More, if they could play
for time, the enforcement in the native city, by driving the smokers over
into the concessions, would actually increase the revenue. So the consuls
played for time. They spread the impression "back home" that they were
going to close the dens. When? Oh, soon--very soon. There were matters of
detail to attend to. The licenses must run out. Then, too, perhaps the
Chinese proposals were "insincere"--a little time would show.

The British concession boasted proudly that it had no opium dens. This was
true. The concession is wholly taken up with British shops and British
homes, and there is no room for Chinese residents. The German concession
had so few natives that it closed some of its dens and took what credit it
could. The Japanese quietly put on the lid. But all the other concessions
remained "wide open."

So ran the Peking gossip. It seemed to me worth while to follow it up; for
if it should prove true that the concessions were actually profiting, like
Shanghai, by the native prohibition, that fact would be significant. It
would leave little to say for the representatives of foreign civilization
in China.

There was a particular reason why the prohibition should be made
effective in and about Tientsin. The one official who stood before his
country and the world as the anti-opium leader, who personified, in fact,
the reform spirit which is leavening the Chinese mass, was Yuan S