rk from about five in the morning until about five in the evening,
stopping twice during that time for meals. When they leave off in the
evening, after a hasty meal they start with their pipes and go on until
they are asleep. I do not know how these men can work. I presume that it
was the hard work that made them take to opium-smoking.

"On asking people why they had taken to the drug, they invariably replied
that it was for the cure of a pain of some sort--for relieving the
suffering. The women often take to it after childbirth, and this is
generally what starts them to smoking.

"The wealthier men who smoke opium nearly all day cannot enter another
room until this room has first been filled with the fumes of opium. Some
one has to go into the room first and smoke a few pipes, so that the air
of the room may be in proper condition.

"There was an official in Shau-ying who used to keep six slave girls going
all day filling his pipes. The slave girls and brides very often try to
commit suicide by eating opium, owing to the harsh treatment they
receive."

Everywhere along the highroad and in the cities and villages of Shansi you
see the opium face. The opium-smoker, like the opium-eater, rapidly loses
flesh when the habit has fixed itself on him. The colour leaves his skin,
and it becomes dry, like parchment. His eye loses whatever light and
sparkle it may have had, and becomes dull and listless. The opium face has
been best described as a "peculiarly withered and blasted countenance."
With this face is usually associated a thin body and a languid gait. Opium
gets such a powerful grip on a confirmed smoker that it is usually unsafe
for him to give up the habit without medical aid. His appetite is taken
away, his digestion is impaired, there is congestion of the various
internal organs, and congestion of the lungs. Constipation and diarrhoea
result, with pain all over the body. By the time he has reached this
stage, the smoker has become both physically and mentally weak and
inactive. With his intellect deadened, his physical and moral sense
impaired, he sinks into laziness, immorality, and debauchery. He has lost
his power of resistance to disease, and becomes predisposed to colds,
bronchitis, diarrhoea, dysentery, and dyspepsia. Brigade Surgeon J. H.
Condon, M. D., M. R. C. S., speaking of opium-eaters before the Royal
Commission on Opium, said: "They become emaciated and debilitated,
miserable-looking wretches, and f