158
when visiting each other. The non-teetotaler who remarks when receiving a friend, "Have a drink," or the teetotaler who in similar circumstances enquires, "Won't you take a cup of tea?" are you extending a civility which may justly be compared to the Chinese custom of offering the opium pipe.
An occasional pipe may be smoked in this way for considerable time until the opium neophyte finds he cannot do without it and that it is necessary to have a pipe regularly to satisfy the craving.
It is within my experience that opium is regarded as prophylactic in North Lincolnshire where very large quantities are annually consumed, chiefly by women, in the marsh districts. It is taken internally in the form of pills and in liquid form as Laudanum.