. New China and old : personal recollections and observations of thirty years. gland could have righted herself in the eyes of Chinaand of Christendom by an act of high-souled has adopted the poppy as one of her staple finds the revenue from the trade too large, and thehold of the vice on the people too closely riveted,either to care for the abolition of the traffic, or to hopefor the eradication of the habit. But the harm inflictedon the nation by the vice, and the blot on the fairname of a Christian country, cannot be obliterated bythe exposure or by the deteriorat
. New China and old : personal recollections and observations of thirty years. gland could have righted herself in the eyes of Chinaand of Christendom by an act of high-souled has adopted the poppy as one of her staple finds the revenue from the trade too large, and thehold of the vice on the people too closely riveted,either to care for the abolition of the traffic, or to hopefor the eradication of the habit. But the harm inflictedon the nation by the vice, and the blot on the fairname of a Christian country, cannot be obliterated bythe exposure or by the deterioration of the accuserscharacter. What then is the measure of Englands blame from1781 to 1860. The history of the poppy in China hasbeen recently traced in an official pamphlet preparedand published by order of the English Inspector-Generalof Foreign Customs in China ; and the following briefsummary of its statements and conclusions -will be ofinterest while we contemplate the opium-dens of thisgreat centre of commerce, Shanghai. The poppy was probably unknown in China previous. opium in China. 95 to the Tang dynasty ( 618—907). It was thenintroduced by Arab traders as a soporific drug ; and theplant, either as a handsome garden flower, or as a usefulmedicine, is repeatedly mentioned down to the seven-teenth century. At that time tobacco-smoking andtobacco cultivation were introduced from the PhilippineIslands ( 1620). In the time of the last MingEmperor ( 1628—1646) tobacco-smoking was asvigorously denounced and prohibited as opium-smoking100 years later. The Chinese have found the first habitfar less dangerous than they imagined, and the seconda far greater plague than they had feared. Variousingredients were mixed with tobacco, such as arsenicwith the tobacco used in water-pipes, and in all probability opium and tobacco-smokingare closely allied. The first Imperial decree againstopium-smoking was issued about 100 years after theChinese counterblast to
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