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2. Kwong Chow Wan.-The bulk of the prepared opium introduced for consumption here originated in Kwong Chow Wan; this trade is well organised and there is a considerable capital behind it. The most popular brand at present is the Double "K" brand, put up by the firm of Kung Kei of Chek Ham, the Chinese town in the French territory. It is brought into the Colony in large consignments; as soon as the ship comes in, which is generally early in the morning, small sampans go off and take delivery of small lots of 500 taels or so. If the sampan is chased, the opium is thrown into the water, as the consignment is at once split up into several small lots, the risk of seizure is not great. A certain amount is dumped overboard outside the harbour limits, attached to floats, and it is impossible to patrol the wide extent of water through which the ships may pass. For these small Chinese-owned ships on the Kwong Chow Wan run are careful to take various routes on approaching the harbour; after they enter British waters, there are many possible courses which they can take. The only way to deal with this traffic would be to compel these ships to take one course only on entering British waters. There is a certain amount of evidence that in certain cases the opium is put off outside British waters under the shelter of high islands in the offing, and once it is safely on board a small junk, it is comparatively safe, and small quantities can be transferred to sampans or motor boats as required. Only retail quantities required for immediate sale are kept ashore; the bulk being kept on sampans which are always on the move, for a few dollars, any mistress of a sampan will store opium or arms for a few days.
The record seizure of the year was made by myself personally on s.s. "Taiszema" soon after her arrival in the Colony from Kwong Chow Wan. She had been detained by bad weather and so arrived in the afternoon. A hiding place had been constructed by cutting off part of the bunker, removing a plate of the cross bulkhead, and fitting it so that it could be easily removed, but at the same time look as if it was intact; the bolts passing through the angle irons having been cut off, leaving dummy heads. The firewood carried in the hold against this bulkhead was specially stowed so as to leave an empty space alongside the bulkhead, in order to give access to the removable plate; entry to this space was obtained by cutting a trap door through the floor of the engine-room store room, which was situated over the space. The opium would have been passed out through this trap-door. The cargo of firewood belonged to the owners of the ship; this ship had been searched several times, but the hiding place had never been discovered. The opium was packed mostly in mat bags with rope handles; the bags were of small size so that the opium could be at once distributed into many lots. In certain cases, the invoices were tucked into the parcels; these showed that the best quality of the prepared opium cost $6 a tael (whether this was French money or Chinese sub-coin was uncertain); the cheaper brands cost about $3 per tael. Amongst this seizure was an unusual amount of Chinese raw opium, both the common "Bamboo" cakes, and the kind known...