twenty-nine grains, a quantity of opium sufficient to poison a hundred men, smoked by one man in a day, and this he has been doing for twenty years: that is to say, he has consumed in smoke in that time about one thousand pounds sterling, and for this indulgence he has to deny himself and his family many absolute necessaries. The list of admissions contains thirty-five opium smokers, and the amount smoked between them daily was eighty-four mace and a half, or seven dollars worth of opium. The result of my observations this year is only to confirm all I said on the subject of opium smoking in my report for 1880.

Again, Dr. Ayres has published from time to time in the “Friend of China,” the organ of the Anti-Opium Society, various interesting papers on medical subjects. This is what he says in an article which will be found at length at p. 217 of vol. 3 of that journal:—

Let Mr. Storrs Turner refute this, if he can. If he cannot, what becomes of his book[1] published in 1876, which may be called the gospel of the Anti-Opium Society, with which I shall make you better acquainted by and by. And what should become of the Anti-Opium Society itself, which has wasted on its chimerical projects hundreds of thousands of pounds—the contributions of the benevolent British public, which might have been spent in alleviating the misery and distress in this vast metropolis, or been otherwise usefully applied.

The Government of Hong Kong, for the purposes of revenue, has farmed out the privilege or monopoly of preparing this opium and selling it within the colony, and I dare say you will be surprised to hear that the amount paid by the present opium monopolist for the privilege amounts to about forty thousand pounds sterling a year. To elucidate this, I should tell you, that opium as imported from India, Persia, and other places is in a crude or unprepared state. In this condition it is made up in hard round balls, each about the size of a Dutch cheese, but darker in colour. To render it fit for smoking it has to be stripped of its outer covering, shredded, and boiled with water until it becomes a semi-fluid glutinous substance resembling treacle in colour and consistence. In this state it is known as “prepared opium.” As such it is put up into small tins or canisters, hermetically sealed, so that it can be exported to any part of the world. Now, I have been the professional adviser of the opium farmer for at least ten years, and from him and his assistants I have had excellent opportunities of learning the truth about opium. I have thus been able to get behind the scenes, and so have had such opportunities of acquainting myself with the subject as few other Europeans have possessed. I knew the late opium farmer, whom I might call a personal friend, intimately from the time of my first arrival in China. When I call him the opium farmer I mean the ostensible one, for the opium monopoly has always, in fact, been held by a syndicate. My friend was the principal in whose name the license was made out, and who dealt with the wholesale merchants, carried on all arrangements with the Government of the Colony, and chiefly managed the prepared opium business. I knew him so intimately and had so many professional dealings with him, irrespective of opium, that I had constant opportunities of becoming acquainted with all the mysteries of the opium trade. Now the conclusion to which my own personal experience has led me I have told you of before, and I have never met anyone who has lived in China, save the missionaries, whose experience differed from mine. I have tried to find the victims of the so-called dreadful drug, but I have never yet succeeded.

Many people in this country, I dare say, owing to the false and exaggerated stories which have been disseminated by the advocates of the Anti-Opium Society, think that if they went to Hong Kong they would see swarms of wretched creatures, wan and wasted, leaning upon crutches, the victims of opium smoking. If they went to the colony they would be greatly disappointed, for no such people are to be met with. On the contrary, all the Chinese they would see there are strong, healthy, intelligent-looking people, and, mark my words, well able to take care of themselves. I don’t suppose there were five per cent. of my Chinese clients who did not, to a greater or less extent, smoke opium. I have known numbers, certainly not less than five or six hundred persons in all, who have smoked opium from their earliest days—young men, middle-aged men, and men of advanced years, who have been opium smokers all their lives, some of them probably excessive smokers, but I have never observed any symptoms of decay in one of them. I recall to mind one old man in particular, whom I remember for more than fifteen years; he is now alive and well; when I last saw him, about two years ago, he was looking as healthy and strong as he was ten years before. He is not only in good bodily health, but of most extraordinary intellectual vigour, one of the most crafty old gentlemen, indeed, that I have ever met; no keener man of business you could find, or one who would try harder to get the better of you if he could. The only signs of opium smoking about him are his discoloured teeth, by which an excessive smoker can always be detected, for immoderate opium smoking has the same effect, though in a less degree, as the similar use of tobacco, the excessive smoking of which, as I shall by and by show you, is the more injurious practice of the two. The Chinese, as a rule, have extremely white teeth—the effect, perhaps, of their simple diet, and their generally abstemious habits. They are proud of their teeth, which they brush two or three times a day, so that there is no difficulty in distinguishing heavy smokers from those who smoke in moderation. It is easy to compare the one with the other, and I may state that although the former be not often met with, he will be found to be not a whit inferior to the other in wit or sharpness. The old gentleman I have referred to, like many others of his countrymen, will settle himself down of an evening, when the business of the day is over, and enjoy his opium pipe for two or three hours at a stretch, yet, notwithstanding this terrible excess, as the Anti-Opium people would say, he continues strong and well. Nay, more, he has two sons of middle age, healthy, active men, who indulge in the pipe quite as regularly as their aged father. I have known many others like these men, but have never seen or heard of any weakness or decay arising from the practice.

Now, I have told you that the British merchants in China hold the same views as I do upon the opium question. But it may be said that the merchants are interested persons, and in point of fact Mr. Storrs