the traffic
in spirits at home. The Chinese Emperor was reported to have said, and
the sentiment has been extolled to the skies by the anti-opiumists: "I
will not consent to derive a revenue from the misery and vice of my
people." The English people, however, are not so fastidious, and our
annual revenue from the duty on spirituous liquors is L27,000,000, and on
tobacco L8,500,000, while our partiality to alcohol costs us L145,000,000.
The Chinese, with a population ten times as great, only spend L42,000,000
on their luxury, opium, and derive a revenue therefrom, in spite of the
Emperor's disclaimer, of more than three millions sterling. India exports
to China about 5,300 tons of crude opium, which together with four times
the amount of native-grown drug gives 2-1/2 oz. (avoird.) to each
individual. We in England, with a population of thirty-three millions,
consume 200,000 tons of alcohol, not to mention more than a billion
gallons of wine and beer.[105] And the annual mortality resulting from
this terrible indulgence in spirituous liquors is 128,000, while the
number of habitual drunkards is 600,000;[106] that is, one in every 260
persons dies from over-indulgence in alcohol! What an appaling fact! we
might say, echoing Lord Shaftesbury's words. Terrible as it is, it has
been accepted by our countrymen as a deplorable necessity which cannot be
altered by any legislative enactments against the importation of alcoholic
drinks from abroad. All, or all except a few visionary enthusiasts, have
come to see that the only way to check this widespread vice is by bringing
the opinion of the people to bear upon it, to drive it out from among the
lower classes as it has been driven out from the upper by the force of
public example and public opinion. It is obvious that the same reasoning
will apply to China[107], and accordingly we find that the drinking of
samshoo, a deletrious extract from rice, was common among the people, and
all prohibitions were powerless to prevent it till the religious influence
of Buddhism was brought to bear upon it and had great success in
diminishing the vice; so that samshoo-drinking is now comparatively rare
in a great part of China, its place being taken by opium, which is allowed
by Buddhist and Mohammedan laws.

But, say the anti-opiumists, if we have not introduced opium into China,
we have certainly forced it upon the Chinese when they showed a sincere
desire to have none of it; first by a syste