business there.
(6)
They buy the salt from large junks that come from Shánmi Páichau, P'inghoi, Saipò, Kamsing, Kammún. These junks average from 300 to 8 or 900 piculs. They sell the salt to the smugglers, who take it to Tungkún, &c. The merchants also buy salt from foreign vessels. The amount of smuggled salt that leaves Yaumáti is roughly speaking about 6,000 piculs a month.
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As to smuggled opium, it is without exception brought over from Hongkong, where it is purchased, in sampans and small boats, and landed at different places along the shore-sometimes at Kunch'ung, sometimes at Yaumáti, and sometimes at Ts'op'áitsai. The quantity varies from ten balls, the least I have ever known, to ninety balls. This of course does not include the recent cases of 353 balls or packages. When the opium is landed, it is stored in houses or huts, until a favourable opportunity presents itself, when it is carried overland by runners, who are armed with a musket or revolver, or both. They carry the opium in cotton or mat bags, slung over their shoulders on a bamboo, or tied on to their backs. They go in parties of three or four up to ten, which is the largest party. I have frequently stopped these runners and examined their bundles, but finding them to contain opium only, I have allowed them to pass, at which they seem to be amused. They never seem alarmed at meeting any of the European or Chinese Constables. Whenever I have stopped the parties, they always produce a bill · of purchase. I have frequently had these bills translated to me, and have always found them to state that the opium was bought in Hongkong, generally in Bonham Strand or Jervois Street. The opium is generally brought across at night. The smugglers keep in doors for fear of being seen by the Customs spies, a very great number of whom are always to be seen in Yaumáti. In December 1876, out of seven men, who called themselves Customs Spies, two were sentenced to six years penal servitude and to be twice publicly flogged for assaulting and robbing a man named FÁN CH'I-WONG. The sentences were subsequently remitted as the men were acting under orders. WONG- KWAI, the third prisoner, was sentenced to three years penal servitude, and the other four were discharged. As a rule these runners are employed by merchants, many of them, I believe, in Hongkong, who hire them in the hope that the opium will be carried through. They are paid so much the run, $1 a ball, sometimes $2. As a rule they succeed in carrying the opium to its destination. I have known of a great many. cases of these runners being driven back, finding that they were likely to get caught if they went on. I have known men coming back with 39 and 15 balls of opium. I have never heard of any of the smugglers being wounded. I have never even heard of there being any fighting, with the exception of course of the last case of smuggling. I have known small boats leave Yaumáti with opium; for example, the case of the 10th September, 1880. In another case, about a month later than the above, a similar boat was being loaded with opium: the occupants were brought to the Station, and questioned as to the opium. A bill was produced, showing they had purchased the opium in Hongkong, and they said they were going to smuggle it, and I let them go. I have frequently seen small boats take opium from Yaumáti, which goes up the Canton river, where it is landed. I have never seen a large junk take opium from Yaumáti. The smugglers on board these small boats have the opium done up in a netting with a large stone to it, for the purpose of sinking it in the event of their being overhauled by the Customs, and they recover it, if thrown overboard, by dredging for it. The cattle dealers, who come with cattle to the Colony from T'ámshui and other places always take opium on their return journey, being different from opium runners in so far as the opium is their own. These cattle dealers I have frequently met unarmed.