Customs stations are few, and so poorly equipped as to yield
readily to superior force, where the men are compelled to accept a
composition much below the official rate.

Opium smoking is still common in Western China among people who can
afford it. At the time of the crusade against it, wealthy people laid
in stocks enough to last them for years; and, so long as there is
smuggling from other provinces, which do grow it, into those which do
not, there will be no danger of the absolute extermination being carried
successfully into effect. Kwei-chow, in common with the western
provinces, has undeservedly secured the credit for having practically
abolished the poppy; but at the present moment (December, 1909) she is
at a loss to know what to do with her supply, and that is the reason why
people of Yuen-nan are making bargains in opium smuggled over the border.
Much has yet to be done. To prevent the growth of a plant which has been
in China for at least twelve centuries, which has had medicinal uses for
nine, and whose medicinal properties have been put in the capsule for
six, is not an easy matter, far more difficult, in fact, than the
average Englishman and even those who rant so much about the whole
business upon little knowledge can imagine. Opium has been made in China
for four centuries, and although used then with tobacco, has been smoked
since the middle of the seventeenth century.[M]

A few years ago Yuen-nan had only two articles of importance with which
to pay for extra provincial products consumed, namely, opium and tin.
The latter came from a spot twenty miles from Mengtsz, and the value of
the output now runs to approximately three million taels. Opium came
from all parts of the province and went in all directions, that portion
sent to the Opium Regie at Tonkin sometimes being close to three
thousand piculs, and the quantity going by land into China being very
much greater. Yuen-nan opium was known at Canton and Chin-kiang in 1863.
In 1879, the production was variously estimated at from twelve thousand
to twenty-two thousand piculs; in 1887 it had risen to approximately
twenty-seven thousand piculs, and since then to the time of the reform
no less certainly than thirty thousand piculs.

One afternoon, in November of 1909, the execution ground of Yuen-nan-fu
was the scene of a remarkably daring proceeding by the officials in the
campaign for the total suppression of opium in the province. No less
than 20,04