m, no inspiration, no poetic fire. The
modern poetaster who pens a chaste ode to his mistress's eyebrow,
seeks in the opium-pipe that flow of burning thoughts which his
forefathers drained from the wine-cup. We cannot see that he does
wrong. We believe firmly that a moderate use of the drug is attended
with no dangerous results; and that moderation in all kinds of eating,
drinking, and smoking, is just as common a virtue in China as in
England or anywhere else.[*]

[*] Sir Edmund Hornley, after nine years' service as chief judge of
the Supreme Court at Shanghai, delivered an opinion on the anti-
opium movement in the following remarkable terms:--"Of all the
nonsense that is talked, there is none greater than that talked
here and in England about the immorality and impiety of the opium
trade. It is simply sickening. I have no sympathy with it, neither
have I any sympathy with the owner of a gin-palace; but as long as
China permits the growth of opium throughout the length and
breadth of the land, taxes it, and pockets a large revenue from
it,--sympathy with her on the subject is simply ludicrous and
misplaced."--(J. W. Walker v. Malcolm, 28th April 1875.)

But the following extract from a letter to the _London and China
Express_, of 5th July 1875, part of which we have ventured to
reproduce in italics, surpasses, both in fiction and naivete,
anything it has ever been our lot to read on either side of this
much-vexed question:--"The fact is, that this tremendous evil is
utterly beyond the control of politicians, or even
philanthropists. Nothing but the divine power of Christian life
can cope with it, and though this process may be slow, it is sure.
Christian missions alone can deal with the opium traffic, now that
it has attained such gigantic dimensions, and the despised
missionaries are solving a problem which to statesmen is
insoluble. Those, therefore, who recognise the evils of opium-
smoking will most effectually stay the plague _by supporting
Christian Protestant Missions in China_.--Yours faithfully,

"An Old Residenter in China.

"London, June 28, 1875."

THIEVING

Nowhere can the monotony of exile be more advantageously relieved by
studying dense masses of humanity under novel aspects than in China,
where so much is still unknown, and where the bulk of which is
generally looked upon as fact r