. This
naturally brings us to the reasons which have made opium-smoking so
prevalent in China. These are, as before stated, partly climatic, partly
constitutional. Taking the former first, we may note that China over
one-third of its surface is a vast ill-drained marsh, and covered to a
large extent with rice-fields, the cultivation of which is productive of
much unhealthiness.[93] To counteract this unhealthiness, nothing is so
efficacious or so handy as opium; for, though quinine is even more useful
as a febrifuge, opium has the additional advantage, peculiar to itself, of
checking blood-spitting and consumption, a disease fatally prevalent in
these unwholesome localities. As a general rule, the unhealthier the
locality is, the more opium is consumed there, not in China only, but in
India (_e.g._ in Orissa and Assam), and in our own fen districts. But
besides being a safeguard against malaria and its attendant ailments,
opium is also a valuable agent in counteracting the effect of the putrid
and unwholesome food which, by its piquancy, pleases the Celestial palate.
But over and above these special reasons, there are general causes which
predispose the Chinese to _some_ lazy habit. Their home life is not one
which affords them many attractions. They have no books, except the
everlasting _Confucius_, and no periodical literature to engage their
thoughts. The domestic life of the Chinese has none of the charms implied
by our word "home"; and it is this blankness, this want of home
attractions, which no doubt causes much of the drunkenness of the poorer
classes here in England. The gin-shop is the poor man's club. Lastly,
opium is specially suited to the lethargic Turanian nature,[94] for while
by the delightful dreamy sensations which it produces it supplies the
place of an imagination which the Chinaman lacks, it does not rob him of
that dignified repose, that impassive acquiescence, which is so marked a
characteristic of the Oriental mind.[95]

And here it will not be amiss to institute a short comparison between the
use of opium by the Chinese and the use of ardent spirits by ourselves.
Those who agitate for a suppression of the opium trade demur to any such
comparison being made; and naturally, for it tells entirely against them.

Dr. Hobson,[96] a member of the London Missionary Society, and for many
years medical officer at Canton, says: "I place alcohol (the bane of Great
Britain) and opium (the bane of China) in