34. There is however a considerable increase in the number of sick admitted to the Gaol Hospital, being 356 as compared with 297 in 1881. In 1874 there were only 148 admitted, and I reported in that year the very limited accommodation there was in the Gaol Hospital for the sick. As it has never been increased it now causes very serious difficulty at times. The great increase in the amount of sickness is easily accounted for in the very different type of prisoners received of late years; formerly the majority of them were sturdy rogues, now the great majority are miserable, weakly wretches of the beggar class referred to as increasing the numbers of Destitutes and Police Cases in the Civil Hospital, of whom such numbers have of late years made their appearance in the Colony. Amongst the European prisoners there were few except prisoners sent in by the Army and Navy Court Martials; now there is a regular gang of loafers who are continually appearing again and again for vagabondage, drunkenness, and similar small offences.
35. Table IX shows the causes of admission to the Gaol Hospital. Table X, cases treated in the Cells. Beside these, endless petty complaints not recorded, together with malingerers, are brought up every morning for examination, or to be passed for punishment, averaging about fifty daily.
36. There were seven deaths in the Gaol this year, exclusive of one European suicide and one Indian executed. Four of these were taken into the Hospital immediately on admission to the Gaol, two of them died within twenty-four hours; all the seven deaths were among the Chinese prisoners.
37. Table XI B shows the number and nature of the cases sent at once to the Gaol Hospital when brought in from the Courts.
38. Table XI C gives a list of the opium smokers received into the Gaol and reporting themselves as consumers of one mace and upwards of opium daily. It gives their age, number of years they have contracted the habit, their consumption of opium per diem, weight on admission, and for the four following weeks, if detained so long. None of them were ever permitted to have opium in any form; those who were sick were treated on the merits of their cases, and some were in a terrible condition of disease. There have been no deaths among them, and I have not found any cases of disease among them that could be attributed to their indulgence in the habit of opium smoking.
39. As near as I can make out, 110 lbs is about the average weight among ordinary Chinese prisoners of all classes received into Gaol; if anything, I think this average is rather above than below the mark. Taking picked men of the largest size and well-developed as regards muscle, it is rare to see the scales turned above 130 lbs. The opium smoker is of all classes; the greatest smokers are men who can afford the expense, and are generally more fat than muscular, but I cannot find that opium smoking causes emaciation in any way. In judging from the reduction in weight in this table, the change of diet on entering Gaol must be taken into consideration, and none of these men were excused from the regular dietary scale without good and sufficient reason other than that of opium smoking; as a matter of fact, very few were excused at all, or had their labour reduced. Nearly all of them had to undergo penal diet, that is to say, in the month their weights were taken, they did two spells of five days each on rice and water only, as every prisoner has to do every month under six months' imprisonment. Under these conditions, it would have been thought that all would have lost flesh, but curiously enough, that is not so, even in the cases of those who it might be supposed from their weight were accustomed to better food outside, so that loss of weight cannot be put down to deprivation of opium.
40. The heaviest smoker was the fourth on the list, his daily consumption being 15 mace or 150 grams; he had been an opium smoker for 30 years; he comes into Gaol weighing 107 lbs, does not lose weight at all, but in three weeks rises to 110 lbs, at the end of the fourth week weighing the same.
41. It appears to me that the opium smoker suffers much less from the enforced deprivation of the accustomed luxury at once than the tobacco smoker. Many of them make no complaint at all; there is no particular symptom caused by the deprivation, which is common to all. There is certainly no loss of sleep to any extent, for I have had many of them specially watched. Yet according to statements made by the Anti-opium League, they ought to have suffered tortures, but then it is the custom of the Anti-opium League to repeat and believe all the yarns they hear, and not take very much trouble about verifying them. Physicians of Hospitals at home are easily misled by patients, where the watching is at any rate much better than in any Hospital in China, and yet to read the accounts by the Physicians themselves of how they have been imposed upon for a considerable time by patients is quite sufficient to show how easily an old opium smoker could bamboozle a Physician in a China Hospital. In the Gaol, it can also be done, but it is not so easy where they are watched day and night by European Warders. And this is the only Gaol in China that affords such facilities for watching such a number of opium smokers.
42. I am still of opinion that there are few subjects concerning which so much nonsense has been talked, or so many false impressions been disseminated as about opium smoking, which from all I can gather seems in itself a most harmless practice. I am not talking about the money squandered or families impoverished by the luxury indulged in by the breadwinner. The same may be said of the gin drinker, but no one can say that the gin has no evil effect as a poison itself on the gin drinker. I contend that opium smoking has no effect whatever on the opium smoker. Here we have given four...