linquished the actual government of India, forbade the sending of its
specially-prepared opium direct to China, and advised a trading station on
the coast whence the drug might find its way, "without the company being
exposed to the disgrace of being engaged in an illicit commerce."

So clean hands and dirty hands went into partnership. They are in
partnership still, save that the most nearly Christian of governments has
officially succeeded the company as party of the first part. And
sixty-five tons of Indian opium go to China every week.

As soon as the shipments of opium have reached Hongkong and Shanghai (I am
quoting now in part from a straightforward account by the Rev. T. G.
Selby), they are broken up and pass in the ordinary courses of trade into
the hands of retail dealers. The opium balls are stripped of the dried
leaves in which they have been packed, torn like paste dumplings into
fragments, put into an iron pan filled with water and boiled over a slow
fire. Various kinds of opium are mixed with each other, and some shops
acquire a reputation for their ingenious and tasteful blends. After the
opium has been boiled to about the consistency of coal tar or molasses, it
is put into jars and sold for daily consumption in quantities ranging from
the fiftieth part of an ounce to four or five ounces. "I am sorry to say,"
observes Mr. Selby, "that the colonial governments of Hongkong and
Singapore, not content with the revenue drawn from this article by the
Anglo-Indian government, have made opium boiling a monopoly of the Crown,
and a large slice of the revenue of these two Eastern dependencies is
secured by selling the exclusive rights to farm this industry to the
highest bidder."

The most Mr. Clean Hands has been able to say for himself is that, "Opium
is a fiscal, not a moral question;" or this, that "In the present state of
the revenue of India, it does not appear advisable to abandon so important
a source of revenue." After all, China is a long way off. So much for Mr.
Clean Hands! His partner, Dirty Hands, is more interesting. It is he who
has "built up the trade." It is he who has carried on the smuggling and
the bribing and knifing and shooting and all-round, strong-arm work which
has made the trade what it is. To be sure, as we get on in this narrative
we shall not always find the distinction between Clean and Dirty so clear
as we would like. Through the dust and smoke and red flame of all that
dirty busi