This is a deadly poison, and, like prussic acid, it destroys life in
small doses with great rapidity. I found that a rabbit was killed by a
single drop in three minutes and a half. In fifteen seconds the animal
lost all power of standing, was violently convulsed in its fore and
hind legs, and its back was arched convulsively.
In Dr. Ure's "Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines," it is laid
down, at page 250, under the head of "Nicotine":--
This alkaloid is the active principle of the tobacco plant....
Nicotine is a most powerful poison, one drop put on the tongue of a
large dog being sufficient to kill it in two or three minutes.
So much for tobacco and its alkaloid as deadly poisons; yet we all know
that, unless indulged in to an inordinate extent, tobacco smoking is a
perfectly harmless practice, almost universally indulged in; the exception
now being to find a man, young or old, gentle or simple, who is not a
tobacco smoker. Most of our greatest thinkers, philosophers, poets,
statesmen, and mathematicians smoke it, and in most cases, I believe, with
advantage. Indulged in moderately, it does no injury to the constitution,
but I should rather say its effects are curative and beneficial; you will
rarely find a heavy tobacco smoker a drunkard or even a spirit drinker.
Yet this plant, which gives comfort and delight to millions of people, is
a deadly poison if taken internally in even a minute quantity in its
natural or manufactured state. So it is with opium; the habitual eating of
it may be injurious, but the smoking is not only innocuous, but positively
beneficial to the system. It is a complete preservative against dram
drinking and drunkenness, for whilst it produces similar but far more
agreeable effects on the nervous system than wine, it does not, like
alcohol, poison the blood, destroy the health, and lead to ruin, disgrace,
and death. Of course, opium-smoking, like every other luxury--tea, wine,
spirits, beer, tobacco--may be abused, but the few who indulge excessively
are infinitesimally small as compared with the many who abuse the use of
alcoholic liquors. As to opium eating, an overdose produces death, but the
opium smoker can indulge in his luxury from, morning till night without
any apparent injury. It is plain, therefore, that opium smoking and opium
eating cannot be classed in the same category at all, but stand apart
quite separately and distinctly.
I may here again appropriately refer to Sir Wilfrid Lawson's speech at the
Anti-Opium meeting at Newcastle. In the course of his remarks, the speaker
referred with some humour to an Anti-Tobacco-smoking Society, a once
active organization. At a meeting of this body held at Carlisle, it
appears that the chief orator,--an energetic person, with wonderful powers
of imagination and a fluent tongue, quite another Mr. Storrs
Turner--having exhausted his power of vituperation in denouncing the
Virginian weed and its terrible effects upon its votaries, alleged in
particular that tobacco smoking tended to shorten human life, but here he
was interrupted by one of the audience, a jovial middle-aged north
countryman, who said, "I don't know that Mr. Lecturer, for my father
smoked till he was eighty!" "Ah!" exclaimed the other, quite equal, as he
thought, to the occasion, "your father's case was an exceptional one; he
was an unusually strong, healthy man. Anyone who sees you, his hale,
hearty son, must know that. Had he not been a tobacco smoker he would have
lived much longer." "I don't know that either," returned the countryman,
"for he is alive and well and still smokes tobacco." Now had Sir Wilfrid
delivered that speech at a meeting formed to protest against the theories
of the Anti-Tobacco Society, he would assuredly have scored; but, as
matters stood, I must claim his speech as one made in favour of my views
upon the opium question; for, to use a famous formula, I would say to the
honourable baronet, "Would you be surprised to hear that I can produce to
you, not only an aged father and son who are opium smokers, but a father,
son, and grandson all living who follow that practice, and have done so
all their lives without injury to health?"
But enjoyable as tobacco smoking may be, I contend that, to the Asiatic at
least, opium smoking is not only a more agreeable but also a far more
beneficial practice. Tobacco has no curative properties, but is simply a
poison; opium is the most valuable medicine known; where all other
sedatives fail its powers are prominent. As an anodyne no other medicine
can equal it. There is one property peculiar to opium, that is that it is
non-volatilizable, or nearly so. If a piece of opium is put on a red-hot
plate, it will not volatilize; that is, it will not disappear in the form
of vapour, which by chemical means can be preserved in order to resume or
retain its original character. But it will be destroyed by combustion; the
heat will consume it in the same manner as it would destroy a piece of
sugar or any other non-volatilizable body; whereas a substance that is
volatilizable, like sulphur, on being subjected to the same process,
instead of being destroyed, is simply given out in vapour, and by proper
means may be caught again and reformed in the shape of sulphur. So when
you place opium into a pipe and put the pellet to the lamp, the effect of
the combustion is to destroy the active property of the opium; the smoker
takes the smoke thrown off into his mouth, which he expels either through
the mouth or nostrils. The only way, therefore, he can get any of the
active property of the opium into his system is by smoking it like
tobacco. Now tobacco, on the contrary, is volatilizable, but the poison is
so volatile, and escapes so freely through the bowl of the pipe in the
shape of vapour, and is so rapidly expelled from the mouth, that no harm
is produced by the process of smoking the deadly poison, the natural
recuperative power of the frame neutralizing the effects of the noisome
vapour. The difference between opium and tobacco smoking appears to be
this:--In the one case you take into your mouth the mere smoke of a
valuable aromatic drug, which, when passed into the stomach in proper
quantities as a medicine, has powerful curative properties, the smoke when
expelled leaving no substance behind it, but in its passage exerting a
pleasant and perfectly harmless stimulating effect upon the nerves.
In the case of tobacco, the fumes with the volatilized substance of a foul
and poisonous weed having no curative properties whatever, and having the
most loathsome and offensive smell to those who have not gone through the
pain and misery necessary to accustom themselves to them, is taken into
the mouth. Nicotine, the alkaloid of tobacco, is simply a deadly and rapid
poison, useful only to the assassin. Morphia, the alkaloid of opium, is
only poisonous when taken in an excessive quantity; whether used
internally or injected under the skin, it is the most wonderful anodyne
and sedative known. I fully believe that, when medical men come to study
opium and opium smoking more fully, it will become the established opinion
of the faculty that opium smoking is not only perfectly harmless, but that
it is most beneficial, so that it may ultimately not only put down spirit
drinking, but perhaps supersede, to a great extent, tobacco. But few
medical men in this country have as yet made opium a special study. They
only know its use and properties as described in the British Pharmacopeia;
many even of those who have practised in the parts of India where the drug
is eaten do not, it seems, as yet fully understand all its properties. Dr.
Ayres himself admits that he was astonished after his arrival in Hong Kong
to find the great difference between the effects of smoking and eating the
drug. I may here remind my readers that we have, or had once, an
Anti-Tobacco-smoking Society, just as there is now an Anti-Opium-smoking
Society. The former had so many living evidences of the absurdities
alleged by its supporters against the use of tobacco, that the agitation
was laughed down and has either died a natural death or has only a
moribund and spasmodic existence; but had the place where the alleged
enormity of tobacco smoking was practised been Africa, I think the Society
would have died a much harder death, or at all events shown more vitality.
The Anti-Opium Society would have shared the same fate long ago were it
not that the scene of all the alleged evils is China, ten thousand miles
away, and the witnesses against their absurd allegations live the same
distance from us. But still, believe me, the Anti-Opium Society's days are
numbered: it is doomed, and, like the Anti-Tobacco craze, will be numbered
soon amongst the things that were. I flatter myself that in the delivery
and publication of these lectures I have given the agitation a heavy blow
and great discouragement.
I had some time ago the advantage of reading a very interesting and
remarkable letter in the "Times" by Sir George Birdwood, to whom I have
already referred; he has had more than fourteen years' experience in India
as a medical man, and has made the opium question a special study. I think
his testimony is worth a great deal more than that of any layman, however
learned or talented; the one has both theoretical and practical knowledge
of his subject, the other at best is only a theorist. Believe me, the
Roman poet knew human nature well when he said, "Trust the man who has
experience of facts." The paper, which is a learned and interesting one,
is too long to read, but here is an extract from it:--
My readers can judge for themselves from the authorities I have
indicated; but the opinion I have come to from them and my own
experience is, that opium is used in Asia in a similar way to alcohol
in Europe, and that, considering the natural craving and popular
inclination for, and the ecclesiastical toleration of it and its
general beneficial effects, and the absence of any resulting evil,
there is just as much justification for the habitual use of opium in
moderation as for the moderate use of alcohol, and indeed far more.
Sir Benjamin Brodie is always quoted as the most distinguished
professional opponent of the dietetical use of opium; but what are his
words (_Psychological Enquiries_, p. 248):--"The effect of opium when
taken into the stomach is not to stimulate, but to soothe the nervous
system. It may be otherwise in some instances, but these are rare
exceptions to the general rule. The opium eater is in a passive state,
satisfied with his own dreamy condition while under the influence of
the drug. He is useless but not mischievous. It is quite otherwise
with alcoholic liquors." Opium smoking, which is the Chinese form of
using the drug--for which the Indian Government is specially held
responsible--is, to say the least in its favour, an infinitely milder
indulgence. As already mentioned, I hold it to be absolutely harmless.
I do not place it simply in the same category with even tobacco
smoking, for tobacco smoking may, in itself, if carried into excess,
be injurious, particularly to young people under twenty-five; but I
mean that opium smoking in itself is as harmless as smoking
willow-bark or inhaling the smoke of a peat-fire or vapour of boiling
water.... I have not seen Surgeon-General Moore's recent paper on
opium in the _Indian Medical Gazette_, but I gather from a notice of
it quoted from the _Calcutta Englishman_, in the _Homeward Mail_ of
the 14th of November last, that it supplies a most exhaustive and able
vindication of the perfect morality of the revenue derived by the
Indian Government from the manufacture and sale of opium to the
Chinese. He quotes from Dr. Ayres, of Hong Kong: "No China resident
believes in the terrible frequency of the dull, sodden-witted,
debilitated opium smoker met with in print;" and from Consul Lay:--"In
China the spendthrift, the man of lewd habits, the drunkard, and a
large assortment of bad characters, slide into the opium smoker; hence
the drug seems chargeable with all the vices of the country." Mr.
Gregory, Her Majesty's Consul at Swatow, says Dr. Moore never saw a
single case of opium intoxication, though living for months and
travelling for hundreds of miles among opium smokers. Dr. Moore
directly confirms my own statement of the Chinese having been great
drunkards of alcohol before they took to smoking opium. I find also a
remarkable collection of folk-lore (_Strange Stories from a Chinese
Studio_, by Herbert A. Giles), evidence in almost every chapter of the
universal drinking habits of the Chinese before the introduction of
opium among them, notwithstanding that the use of alcohol is opposed
to the cardinal precepts of Buddhism. What Dr. Moore says of the
freedom of opium smokers from bronchial thoracic diseases is deserving
of the deepest consideration. I find that, on the other hand, the
Chinese converts to Christianity suffer greatly from consumption. The
missionaries will not allow them to smoke, and, as they also forbid
their marrying while young, after the wise custom, founded on an
experience of thousands of years of their country, they fall into
those depraved, filthy habits, of which consumption is everywhere the
inexorable witness and scourge. When spitting of blood comes on, the
opium pipe is its sole alleviation.
Now Dr. Birdwood is not only well informed upon the opium question, but is
certainly one of the ablest opponents of the Anti-Opium agitation who has
yet appeared. His letters in the "Times" created quite a sensation, and so
alarmed Mr. Storrs Turner that he left no means untried to neutralize
their effects. At this point a bright idea occurred to him. Finding that
there was a general consensus of opinion against him amongst English
medical men and other competent authorities that the outcry against opium
was groundless, he hit upon the brilliant expedient of discrediting them
all, by the assertion that Englishmen are so prejudiced that they are not
to be believed. This is what he says on the subject in his famous article
in the _Nineteenth Century_ having in a previous passage imagined a case
in which China was the plaintiff and Great Britain the defendant:--
The baneful effects of the opium vice are established by universal
experience. One may apply to it the theological maxim _Quod semper
quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_. Two considerations will show that the
opposition of a few dissentient voices does not detract from the
general conclusion. Most of these are quite clear on the point that
opium is bad for everybody but Chinese. They would be horrified at the
suggestion that opium should be freely used in England and approve the
efforts or supposed efforts of the Indian Government to keep it out of
the way of the natives of India. On another point these dissentients
are all alike; _every one of them is prejudiced in favour of the
defendant in the case before us. They are all Englishmen._ No French
or German medical man, no single Chinese authority has been quoted to
testify to the innocence of opium. Some of these apologists are opium
merchants, who aver that the drug by which they make their wealth is a
boon and a blessing to China; or it is a gentleman employed in the
India Office who considers opium smoking as safe as "twiddling one's
thumbs."
Could the force of folly or fanaticism go further than that? All
Englishmen are prejudiced. I wonder, did it ever occur to Mr. Storrs
Turner that _he_, being an Englishman, might be a little prejudiced
also--on the other side of the question. Yes; Dr. Ayres, Dr. Eatwell,
Surgeon-General Moore, Dr. Birdwood, and a host of other eminent medical
men standing in the front rank of their profession, Sir Rutherford
Alcock, Mr. Colborne Baber, Mr. W. Donald Spence, and others are not to be
believed--because they are Englishmen! Were they Germans or Frenchmen,
they would, of course, be entitled to the fullest credence. Like the
priest and prophet of Crete, Mr. Storrs Turner holds that all his
countrymen are liars.[8] But, stay, do I not remember that gentleman's
holding a select conference of English medical men, about October 1882,
when certain resolutions were drawn up condemnatory of opium? Surely, yes.
The invitations were issued by the Earl of Shaftesbury. I should like to
ask Mr. Storrs Turner were the medical and other gentlemen then present
Englishmen or foreigners? If I do not greatly err they were _all_
Englishmen. Does Mr. Storrs Turner consider those gentlemen worthy of
credit? I rather think he does: so that Mr. Turner's creed runs thus:
"Englishmen are to be believed so long as they agree with me on the opium
question. When they differ from me on that subject they are not to be
believed at all." Mr. Turner is fond of treating his readers to
theological maxims. I will now give him a legal one which, I think, is
applicable to his case. It runs thus, translated into plain English: "_He
is not to be heard who alleges things contrary to each other_." Of course,
the reader has seen that Mr. Turner's sneer at "the gentleman employed in
the India Office," is at Sir George Birdwood, whose pungent articles in
the _Times_ have inflicted such damage on his cause, and whose efforts in
the interests of common sense and truth he would wish to suppress.
As Mr. Turner's tastes are exotic, I will furnish him now with some
_foreign_ testimony that may perhaps astonish him. For many years previous
to 1858, Don Sinibaldo de Mas had been the Envoy-Extraordinary and
Minister Plenipotentiary of the Court of Spain at Pekin. That nobleman had
travelled much in China, India, Java, Borneo, and Malacca, having learned
the Chinese language the better to enable him to utilize his travels in
those places. In 1858 he published a book[9] in the French language on
China and the Chinese, making special reference to the opium question, to
which he has devoted one very interesting chapter exclusively. The book
was brought out in Paris, and has never, that I am aware of, been
translated into English. Now about the last person from whom one would
expect to obtain testimony of the kind is a Spaniard. Yet so it is. This
book of Don Sinibaldo de Mas is, indeed, one of the most powerful
vindications of British policy in India and China that has yet been
written. I hardly think even Mr. Storrs Turner can accuse this gentleman
of partiality, or object to his testimony as being influenced by personal
motives. This is part of what he says on the subject:--
I may say, in the first instance, that personally neither as a private
individual nor as a public functionary have I ever been in the
slightest degree interested in this (opium) trade, for be it noted
that Spanish vessels have never imported into China a single chest of
opium. I consequently approach this subject with complete
impartiality. I have known the Chinese at Calcutta, Singapore, Penang,
Malacca, Manila, and in many parts of their own country, where I
acquired a sufficient knowlege of the Chinese language to enable me to
converse with the natives and make myself fully acquainted with the
opium question, which I believe I understand, and may be considered
thoroughly unbiassed in my opinions.
Opium has been preached against and denounced as a veritable poison,
and it has been looked upon as a crime in those who have made the drug
an object of commerce or gain. A memorial embodying those views,
signed by many missionaries and supported by the Earl of Chichester,
was presented to Queen Victoria. A meeting was also held in London,
composed of philanthropic gentlemen, presided over by the Earl of
Shaftesbury, when a petition to the Queen embodying the same object
was drawn up; this document I shall refer to more particularly later
on. Lastly, some members of the House of Lords and Commons spoke
against the sale of opium. On the other hand, Christian merchants
established in China, many men of eminence, such as Sir J. F. Davis
and others of the highest respectability, have maintained that the
smoking of this drug has less deletorious effects than the use of
fermented liquors. I will endeavour to explain this question in all
good faith and impartiality. In the maritime towns of India, Malacca,
Java, the Philippines, Borneo, and Sooloo the Chinese are at liberty
to smoke opium where and when they please, and can buy it cheaper than
they can in Canton or Shanghai, not to mention the inland towns: yet
it is a well-known fact that in all these countries, notwithstanding
their unwholesome climates, the opium-smoking Chinese are remarkably
healthy and strong. These very opium smokers are employed as farm
labourers, masons, and porters, enduring great fatigue and performing
the most arduous labours; they have acquired such an excellent
reputation as colonists that efforts have been made during the last
few years to induce them to settle in Lima and Cuba. The percentage of
deaths amongst these people does not exceed the usual rate, and I must
confess that having known numbers of Chinese emigrants in the various
countries I have mentioned, I have never heard of a single death or of
any serious illness having been caused by opium smoking.
It was only on my first arrival in China that I was made aware of the
dire effects this narcotic is said to produce, and that the vapour
inhaled by opium smokers was designated a poison; _I must add that in
none of the different parts of China which I have visited has it come
to my knowledge that death has resulted from opium smoking_. Having
asked several natives whom I thought worthy of credence whether they
had ever heard of a death having occurred from the habit, they
answered me that it might have happened to a very inordinate smoker,
but only in the event of his being suddenly deprived of the
indulgence. One Chinaman related how he had witnessed such a case. He
had known an inveterate opium smoker who had become extremely poor,
and was found insensible and almost lifeless; some good-natured person
passing by puffed some fumes of opium into his mouth, which
immediately seemed to revive him, and enabled him shortly to smoke a
pipe himself, which most effectually recalled him to life. I admit
that opium is in itself a poison, but let me ask what changes does not
fire produce in the various substances which it consumes?
I should like to know what does Mr. Storrs Turner think of that. Here is a
highly-educated Spanish gentleman, speaking Chinese well, living amongst
the natives, studying their habits, especially as regards their use of the
opium pipe, declaring that the practice is innocuous. Now, supposing that
instead of smoking opium these Chinese in Malacca, Java, Borneo, and the
Philippines were addicted to the habitual use of spirits, wine, or even
beer, instead of opium, can any intelligent being suppose for a moment
that they would be the patient, strong, healthy, hard-working people that
Don Sinibaldo De Mas found them, and which they still are?
Let us refer to Mr. W. Donald Spence's testimony as to the _effects_ of
opium. I quote again from his Report of the trade of Ichang for 1881:--
As to the effect of this habit on the people, amongst whom it is so
widespread, there is but one opinion. Baron Richthofen, the most
experienced traveller who ever visited Szechuan, after noticing the
extraordinary prevalence of the habit, says:--"In no other province
except Hunan did I find the effects of the use of opium so little
perceptible as in Szechuan." Mr. Colborne Baber, who knows more of the
province and its people than any living Englishman, says: _Nowhere in
China are the people so well off, or so hardy, and nowhere do they
smoke so much opium_. To these names of weight I add my own short
experience. I found the people of Szechuan stout, able-bodied men,
better housed, clad, and fed, and healthier looking than the Chinese
of the Lower Yang-tsze. I did not see amongst them more emaciated
faces and wasted forms than disease causes in all lands. People with
slow wasting diseases such as consumption are, if they smoke opium,
apt to be classed amongst the "ruined victims" of hasty observers, and
amongst the cases of combined debility and opium smoking I saw, some
were, by their own account, _pseudo_-victims of this type. There were
some, too, whose health was completely sapped by smoking combined with
other forms of sensual excess. And no doubt there were others weakened
by excessive smoking simply, for excess in all things has its penalty.
But the general health and well-being of the Szechuan community is
remarkable; to their capacity for work and endurance of hardship, as
well as to the material comforts of life they surround themselves
with, all travellers bear enthusiastic testimony.
Now, allow me to ask the reader, can he suppose for a moment that if the
people of Szechuan were prone to spirits, or even to beer drinking, in the
same way as they are given to opium smoking, should we have the same
results? Would those people be "so well off and so hardy," so stout,
able-bodied, and so much "better housed, clad, and fed, and healthier
looking than the Chinese of the Lower Yang-tsze?" I think not. What, then,
is the fair conclusion to draw from such a state of things? Why, only that
opium smoking is a harmless if not a beneficial practice, unless when
indulged in to an inordinate extent, which, it is now plain, is entirely
exceptional. I think I am not far from the truth in saying that for one
excessive opium smoker to be met with in China you will find in this
country a hundred cases, at the least, of excessive indulgence in
alcohol--the effects of this being incurable, whilst it is quite otherwise
as regards excessive indulgence in opium. The inference, then, I think, is
that so far as regards any evil effects from opium smoking, they are out
of the range of practical politics and should be relegated to the region
of sentiment alone.
I will now give you a passage from a valuable work by the learned Dr. J.
L. W. Thudichum, Lecturer to St. George's Hospital,[10] which will throw
a good deal of light upon this part of my subject. At pp. 88 and 89 of the
second volume he says:--
The medical uses of opium have been so well known through all
historical times that it is a matter for surprise to find that they
are not better appreciated in the present day. In this, as in many
other matters, we are in fact only gradually emerging from the
condition of those dark times during which, amongst many good things,
the knowledge of opium, for example, was lost.... These and other
considerations led me to look about for a more convenient mode of
producing the effects of morphia without its inconveniences or even
dangers. I know from the experiments of Descharmes and Benard (_Compt.
Rend._, 40, 34) that in opium-smoking a portion of the morphia is
volatilized and undecomposed, and I therefore experimentalized with
the pyrolytic vapours of opium, first upon myself, then upon others;
and when I had made myself fully acquainted with the Chinese method of
using the drug, I came to the conviction that here one of the most
interesting therapeutical problems had been solved in the most
ingenious and at the same time in the most safe manner. I held in my
hand a power well-known and used largely by Eastern races, yet its use
neglected, ignored, denounced, and despised by the entire Western
world.
In other and non-professional words, Dr. Thudichum has found opium smoking
not only harmless but a valuable curative practice.
As to Chinese evidence on this question I could, had I thought proper,
have adduced the testimony of some really trustworthy Chinese merchants
and traders, which would have fully borne out all that I have stated as to
the innocuous effects of opium smoking. I have refrained from doing so,
because such evidence, however strong and reliable, would, I feel assured,
be impugned as untrustworthy by the agents of the Anti-Opium Society and
missionaries, who on their part would, no doubt, in the best faith and
with good intentions, I admit, bring out counter testimony of so-called
Christian converts and other natives of a wholly unreliable character. One
of these persons, called Kwong Ki Chiu, styling himself "late a member of
the Chinese Educational Commission in the United States," has written, or
purported to have written, from Hartford, in Connecticut, a letter on this
question to the _London and China Telegraph_. The statements in this
document are exaggerated, misleading, and, in many respects, actually
untrue. I doubt very much if the letter was ever, in fact, written by a
Chinaman at all, and suspect it was produced either here in London by some
agent or advocate of the Anti-Opium Society and forwarded to Mr. Kwong Ki
Chiu for signature, or that it was written by some American missionary. At
any rate, it is plain that the writer has no real knowledge of the subject
of his letter. To prove this is so it is only necessary to refer to one
passage, in which the writer proceeds to show that opium is to a beginner
more alluring than tobacco or spirits. He says:--
There is this also to be said as to the difference between the two
stimulants: opium is much the more stimulating, and therefore more
dangerous. It is also much more agreeable and fascinating. Not every
person likes the taste of liquor; the flavour of tobacco is agreeable
to very few persons at first: _but everyone, of whatever nationality,
finds the fragrance of the smoking opium agreeable and tempting, so
that I have no doubt that if opium shops were opened in London as in
China, the habit would soon become prevalent even among Englishmen_.
Now this is not true. Every foreigner who has lived in China knows it to
be quite the opposite. During my long residence in Hong Kong I have never
known a single instance of an Englishman, or any other foreigner, being an
opium smoker, although I have met with many who had smoked a few pipes by
way of experiment. All have assured me that the vapour was nauseous, and
produced no pleasurable sensations whatever. The fact that Europeans
dislike the fumes of opium, and never indulge in the opium pipe, shows
that Mr. Kwong Ki Chiu, who has doubtless been since his childhood under
missionary tutelage, and therefore interdicted from the use of the drug,
knows nothing reliable upon the subject he writes about so glibly. At a
proper time and place, I should be prepared to treat Mr. Storrs Turner to
such native testimony upon this subject as would make him open his eyes
very wide and put him and his disciples to confusion and flight.
Let me now give you an extract from a despatch of Sir Henry Pottinger,
formerly Her Majesty's Governor-General and Minister Plenipotentiary in
China, written by him some fifty years ago to the Principal Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs. It is very important, showing, as it does, the
pains that have been taken by Her Majesty's Government at home and her
representatives in China so long ago to ascertain if there were any truth
in the theory that opium smoking was injurious to the health and morals of
the Chinese:--
I cannot admit in any manner the idea adopted by many persons that the
introduction of opium into China is a source of unmitigated evil of
every kind and a cause of misery. Personally, I have been unable to
discover a single case of this kind, although, I admit that, when
abused opium may become most hurtful. Besides, the same remark applies
to every kind of enjoyment when carried to excess; but from personal
observations, since my arrival in China, from information taken upon
all points, and lastly, from what the Mandarins themselves say, I am
convinced that the demoralization and ruin which some persons
attribute to the use of opium, arise more likely from imperfect
knowledge of the subject and exaggeration, and that not one-hundredth
part of the evil arises in China from opium smoking, which one sees
daily arising in England as well as in India from the use of ardent
spirits so largely taken in excess in those countries.
I may now appropriately give you the promised extract from De Quincey's
_Confessions_. I recommend it to the notice of Sir Wilfrid Lawson. The
distinction which he draws between alcoholic intoxication and the
excitement produced by opium eating is instructive and entertaining. He
says:--
Two of these tendencies I will mention as diagnostic, or
characteristic and inseparable marks of ordinary alcoholic
intoxication, but which no excess in the use of opium ever develops.
One is the loss of self-command, in relation to all one's acts and
purposes, which steals gradually (though with varying degrees of
speed) over _all_ persons indiscriminately when indulging in wine or
distilled liquors beyond a certain limit. The tongue and other organs
become unmanageable: the intoxicated man speaks inarticulately; and,
with regard to certain words, makes efforts ludicrously earnest yet
oftentimes unavailing, to utter them. The eyes are bewildered, and see
double; grasping too little, and too much. The hand aims awry. The
legs stumble and lose their power of _concurrent_ action. To this
result _all_ people tend, though by varying rates of acceleration.
Secondly, as another characteristic, it may be noticed that, in
alcoholic intoxication, the movement is always along a kind of arch;
the drinker rises through continual ascents to a summit or _apex_,
from which he descends through corresponding steps of declension.
There is a crowning point in the movement upwards, which once attained
cannot be renewed; and it is the blind, unconscious, but always
unsuccessful effort of the obstinate drinker to restore this supreme
altitude of enjoyment which tempts him into excesses that become
dangerous. After reaching this _acme_ of genial pleasure, it is a mere
necessity of the case to sink through corresponding stages of
collapse. Some people have maintained, in my hearing, that they had
been drunk upon green tea; and a medical student in London, for whose
knowledge in his profession I have reason to feel great respect,
assured me, the other day, that a patient, in recovering from an
illness, had got drunk on a beef-steak. All turns, in fact, upon a
rigorous definition of intoxication.
Having dwelt so much on this first and leading error in respect to
opium, I shall notice briefly a second and a third; which are, that
the elevation of spirits produced by opium is necessarily followed by
a proportionate depression, and that the natural and even immediate
consequence of opium is torpor and stagnation, animal as well as
mental. The first of these errors I shall content myself with simply
denying; assuring my reader, that for ten years, during which I took
opium, not regularly, but intermittingly, the day succeeding to that
on which I allowed myself this luxury was always a day of unusually
good spirits.
With respect to the torpor supposed to follow, or rather (if we were
to credit the numerous pictures of Turkish opium-eaters) to accompany,
the practice of opium-eating, I deny that also. Certainly, opium is
classed under the head of narcotics, and some such effect it may
produce in the end; but the primary effects of opium are always, and
in the highest degree, to excite and stimulate the system. This first
stage of its action always lasted with me, during my novitiate, for
upwards of eight hours; so that it must be the fault of the
opium-eater himself, if he does not so time his exhibition of the
dose, as that the whole weight of its narcotic influence may descend
upon his sleep.
First, then, it is not so much affirmed, as taken for granted, by all
who ever mention opium, formally or incidentally, that it does or can
produce intoxication. Now, reader, assure yourself, _meo periculo_,
that no quantity of opium ever did, or could, intoxicate. As to the
tincture of opium (commonly called laudanum), _that_ might certainly
intoxicate, if a man could bear to take enough of it; but why? Because
it contains so much proof spirits of wine, and not because it contains
so much opium. But crude opium, I affirm peremptorily, is incapable of
producing any state of body at all resembling that which is produced
by alcohol; and not in _degree_ only incapable, but even in _kind_; it
is not in the quantity of its effects merely, but in the quality, that
it differs altogether. The pleasure given by wine is always rapidly
mounting, and tending to a crisis, after which as rapidly it declines;
that from opium, when once generated, is stationary for eight or ten
hours: the first, to borrow a technical distinction from medicine, is
a case of acute, the second of chronic, pleasure; the one is a
flickering flame, the other a steady and equable glow. But the main
distinction lies in this--that, whereas wine disorders the mental
faculties, opium, on the contrary (if taken in a proper manner),
introduces amongst them the most exquisite order, legislation, and
harmony. Wine robs a man of his self-possession; opium sustains and
reinforces it. Wine unsettles the judgment, and gives a preternatural
brightness and a vivid exaltation to the contempts and the
admirations, to the loves and the hatreds, of the drinker; opium, on
the contrary, communicates serenity and equipoise to all the
faculties, active or passive; and, with respect to the temper and
moral feelings in general, it gives simply that sort of vital warmth
which is approved by the judgment, and which would probably always
accompany a bodily constitution of primeval or antediluvian health.
Thus, for instance, opium, like wine, gives an expansion to the heart
and the benevolent affections; but, then, with this remarkable
difference, that in the sudden development of kind-heartedness which
accompanies inebriation, there is always more or less of a maudlin and
a transitory character, which exposes it to the contempt of the
bystander. Men shake hands, swear eternal friendship, and shed
tears--no mortal knows why; and the animal nature is clearly
uppermost. But the expansion of the benigner feelings incident to
opium is no febrile access, no fugitive paroxysm; it is a healthy
restoration to that state which the mind would naturally recover upon
the removal of any deep-seated irritation from pain that had disturbed
and quarrelled with the impulses of a heart originally just and good.
True it is, that even wine, up to a certain point, and with certain
men, rather tends to exalt and to steady the intellect; I myself, who
have never been a great wine-drinker, used to find that half-a-dozen
glasses of wine advantageously affected the faculties, brightened and
intensified the consciousness, and gave to the mind a feeling of being
"ponderibus librata suis," and certainly it is most absurdly said, in
popular language, of any man, that he is _disguised_ in liquor; for,
on the contrary, most men are disguised by sobriety, and exceedingly
disguised; and it is when they are drinking that men display
themselves in their true complexion of character; which surely is not
disguising themselves. But still, wine constantly leads a man to the
brink of absurdity and extravagance; and, beyond a certain point, it
is sure to volatilise and to disperse the intellectual energies;
whereas opium always seems to compose what had been agitated and to
concentrate what had been distracted. In short, to sum up all in one
word, a man who is inebriated, or tending to inebriation, is, and
feels that he is, in a condition which calls up into supremacy the
merely human, too often the brutal, part of his nature; but the
opium-eater (I speak of him simply _as_ such, and assume that he is in
a normal state of health) feels that the diviner part of his nature is
paramount--that is, the moral affections are in a state of cloudless
serenity; and high over all the great light of the majestic intellect.
This is the doctrine of the true church on the subject of opium, of
which church I acknowledge myself to be the Pope (consequently
infallible), and self-appointed _legate à latere_ to all degrees of
latitude and longitude. But then it is to be recollected that I speak
from the ground of a large and profound personal experience, whereas
most of the unscientific authors who have at all treated of opium, and
even of those who have written professionally on the _materia medica_,
make it evident, by the horror they express of it, that their
experimental knowledge of its action is none at all.
I have now dealt with fallacies 1, 2, 3, and 5. The fourth Mr. Turner
gravely states in his book--and I am perfectly sure it is accepted as
seriously by his fellowers, _that the supply of opium regulates the
demand, and not the demand the supply_. He says at pp. 152, 153:--
Defenders of the [opium] policy vainly strive to shelter it behind the
ordinary operation of the trade laws of demand and supply. The
operation of these economic laws does not divest of responsibility
those who set them in motion at either end; for though it would be
absurd to speak of supply as alone creative of demand, _there is no
question but that an abundant and constantly sustained supply
increases demand whenever the article is not one of absolute
necessity_. When silk came by caravans across Central Asia, and a
single robe was worth its weight in gold in Europe, the shining fabric
was reserved for emperors and nobles, and no demand could be said to
exist for it among common people, whereas now the abundant supply
creates a demand among all classes but the very poorest. The
maid-servant who covets a silk dress may be literally said to have had
the demand _created_ in her case, by the ample supply of the material
which places it constantly before her eyes and renders it impossible
for her to obtain it. Only a few years ago there was no demand for
newspapers amongst multitudes who are now daily or weekly purchasers
of them. In this case the supply of penny and halfpenny journals may
be fairly said to have almost alone created the demand. Such
illustrations might be indefinitely multiplied.
After that it may be said that the Birmingham jewellers and Manchester
merchants have only to send out to China any amount they please of their
wares, and they will find a ready market, the more the merrier. All their
goods will be taken off their hands; they will only have to take care that
the prices shall not be too exorbitant, for otherwise, as in the case of
the maid-servant, though the Chinese working classes may have helped to
_create_ the demand, they would be unable to avail themselves of the
supply. If that doctrine were sound, a mercantile firm could create as
extensive a trade as it desired, and that, too, in any part of the world.
Instead of sending out fifty thousand pounds worth this year, as it did
last, it would have only to export ten times the amount, and still the
demand would continue. The fact is, as every man well knows who is not
blinded by enthusiasm and looks at the subject by the light of cool reason
and common sense, that the effect of sending to China or elsewhere an
excessive quantity of merchandise, even though such merchandise were in
request there, would have the effect of glutting the market. It is only
where the demand exists, and the desire to possess the article, or where
the people want a particular class of thing, that the goods can be readily
and profitably disposed of. I am sure that if we sent double the quantity
of opium that we do to China, or, indeed, three times the amount, it would
be readily bought up by the natives, because there is a great demand there
for Indian opium, owing to its superior strength and better flavour. And
it must be remembered that China is a vast empire, and that the natives
cannot get as much of the Indian drug as they want. I had an opportunity
recently of speaking to a German gentleman established here in London, who
has been many years in the opium trade generally, who has made opium quite
a study, tasting and smelling it, as wine merchants do their wine, and he
declares that Indian opium has a perfume and aroma that is not found in
the Chinese or Persian drug, and that, in fact, the smell of the one is
comparatively agreeable, while that of the others is offensive. This, I
believe, is one of the reasons for the Chinese liking Indian opium. For my
own part I must say, that much as I dislike the odour of tobacco, I have a
greater aversion still to the effluvium of opium in any form or shape, and
I think this is also the case with all Europeans. In fact, opium smoking
is a practice peculiar to China.
Nothing proves this so completely as the correspondence between Sir Robert
Hart and his various Sub-Commissioners of Customs, as set out in the
Yellow-Book to which I have so often referred. These Commissioners say
that the Indian drug is almost invariably used to mix with the Chinese
article to flavour and make it, so to speak, the more palatable. The
proposition which Mr. Storrs Turner lays down is simply preposterous, and
cannot for a moment be sustained. I do not wish to utter an offensive word
towards that gentleman personally, whose talents and energy are
unquestionable, and whom I hold in great esteem. Upon any subject but
opium he would be incapable of writing anything but sound sense, but
having opium on the brain, he starts theories that are wholly
unsustainable, which, I am sorry to say, his devoted followers accept as
gospel. But to return to the theory that supply creates the demand. By way
of illustration, Mr. Turner goes on to show that, previous to the removal
of the duty on newspapers, there were very few in the country, but that
the moment the duty was taken off, they multiplied, which he considers
proof that in this case the supply created the demand. That is most
fallacious. The demand for newspapers always existed, but, unfortunately,
owing to the oppressive taxes upon knowledge to which the press in former
times was subjected, the supply was limited. In those days even a weekly
newspaper was a great undertaking. An enterprising man in a country town
might start such a paper, but after a lingering existence it was almost
sure to die, not for want of readers, but because it was so heavily taxed
that readers could not afford to buy it, the price then being necessarily
high. First there was a penny duty on each copy of the newspaper. Next
there was a duty of so much the pound upon the raw material, which had to
be paid before it left the mill; and then there was a further duty upon
every advertisement; so that the unfortunate newspaper proprietor was met
with exactions on every side. A copy, even though an old one, of the
_Times_, or of any of the London morning papers, was in former days
eagerly sought for. In his "Deserted Village," Goldsmith, describing the
village ale-house, says:--
Where village statesmen talked with wit profound,
And news much older than their ale went round.
And one can imagine an eager group in that ale-house trying to get a
glimpse of a London newspaper over the shoulders of the privileged holder.
But when these oppressive duties were removed, a different state of things
prevailed. The cost of starting and manufacturing a newspaper was reduced
to about one-fifth of what it was formerly. Every considerable town had
its daily and its weekly newspaper, because the demand had always existed,
whilst, owing to these prohibitive taxes, there was no supply. The craving
for news had always been present, and the moment these prohibitive duties
were struck off, the ambitious editor, or proprietor, saw his opportunity
and started a paper, not because the supply would create a demand, but
because he knew the demand already existed, and he printed just as many as
he thought he would find readers for, and no more. Had he printed more
than was required the excess would have lain on his hands as so much waste
paper. But according to Mr. Turner's theory, the more newspapers he
printed the more he would have sold! It will at once be recognised that
this theory of supply and demand is simply absurd. If it could be shown to
hold water for a moment, China, and other countries also, would be
inundated with articles that never were seen there before. There would be
no reason why China should not be largely supplied with ladies' bonnets
and satin shoes, which, we know, might lie there for a thousand years and
never be used. I have brought before you this notable theory of Mr. Storrs
Turner's, to show you the utterly worthless kind of arguments with which
the British public have been supplied, in order to support the silly,
unfounded, and most mischievous agitation against the Indo-China opium
trade.
The next fallacy is number six, namely: _that all, or nearly all, who
smoke opium are either inordinate smokers or necessarily in the way of
becoming so; and that once the custom has been commenced it cannot be
dropped, and that the consumption daily increases_. That is not so at all.
It is altogether exceptional to find an inordinate opium smoker; my
reasons for saying so I have already given. I am supported in those views
by every English resident in China, amongst them by Dr. Ayres, whose
authority is simply unquestionable, and whose opinion on the point I have
set out at page 7. I have known hundreds of men who were in the daily
habit of smoking opium after business hours, and they never showed any
decadence whatever. Opium smoking is never practised during business
hours, except by very aged people or the criminal classes. This is an
absolute fact. The Chinese are too wise and thrifty to while away their
time in such luxurious practices during working hours. The opium pipe, as
a rule, is indulged in more moderately than wine or cigars are with us,
the Chinese being so extremely abstemious in their habits. I never saw any
such instances of over-indulgence as Mr. Turner alleges, and I could get
hundreds of European witnesses out in China and here in London who would
depose to the same fact. Frequently have I compared the small shop-keeping
and working people of China with the same classes here at home as regards
sobriety, industry, and frugality, and always, I regret to say, in favour
of the Chinese.
It is absolutely untrue, as put forward by the Anti-Opium Society and
their secretary, Mr. Turner, that opium is so fascinating that, once a man
begins to use it, he cannot leave it off; natives will smoke it, on and
off, for two or three days, and not smoke it again for a week or more; but
the truth is, the habit is a pleasant and beneficial one, and few who can
afford it desire to discontinue smoking. The fact undoubtedly is, that if
opium smoking were productive of the terrible results that the
missionaries and the Anti-Opium Society allege, China would not be the
densely-populated country that it now actually is. China could not have
held its own as it has done so long and so successfully had all the people
been addicted to such a vice as dram drinking. The true way to look at
this aspect of the case is to suppose for a moment that, instead of being
"opium sots," as Mr. Storrs Turner puts it, the Chinese, "everywhere in
China, in all climates and all soils, in every variety of condition and
circumstance throughout the vast Empire," to adopt that gentleman's own
language, drank spirits freely. Should we then have the Chinese the
hard-working, industrious, thrifty, frugal people that we find them? I
trow not. Intemperance carries with it the destruction of its votaries,
but no baneful consequences attend opium smoking. Some thirty years ago,
as Sir Rutherford Alcock tells us, an American missionary declared that
there were twenty millions of opium smokers in China--all, no doubt,
induced to that immorality by the British Government and people--and that
two millions were dying annually from the effects of the vice! This
monstrous tale was implicitly believed in by Lords Shaftesbury and
Chichester. Yet we now have a Chinese official, Sir Robert Hart,
deliberately telling the Government of China, in his official Yellow Book,
that there are but two millions of smokers in the whole Empire; that
Indian opium supplies but a moderate quantity of the drug to but half of
that number; and that neither the health, wealth, nor prosperity of the
people suffers in consequence.