E 4
failed to discover them in action, though, as usual, only small stocks for immediate needs were kept on the premises. One of the rare exceptions to this rule was revealed in a night raid on a house on Cheung Chau Island, where a considerable quantity of raw and prepared opium, together with utensils for the preparation of opium, were discovered on premises on which a divan was being conducted on a generous scale: forty-one persons, thirty-three pipes, seventeen lamps. This is the largest divan yet discovered. Appendix I contains a translation of three illuminating notices found in a divan. This divan was employing waitresses—a comparatively new departure.
Opium Shops.
14. The sale of Government opium continued to be restricted to the Head Office, six Government Shops, and twenty-four salaried retailers in outlying districts. The proportion sold by these last was as usual very small.
V.—HEROIN.
15. In 1931 only five thousand odd heroin pills were seized. In 1932 that item was eleven times as great, and it was stated that "The practice of smoking Heroin Pills seems to be on the increase;
In the report for 1933 a special section had to be devoted to this item, and it was reported that over 440,000 pills had been seized in fifty-six seizures. In the year under review over 417,000 pills were seized in one hundred and fifteen seizures. The largest of these, covering 112,500 pills, was made by the Police in an empty house in Wanchai, without arrest. The total morphine content of all the pills seized during the year was under one kilogramme.
16. A seizure of 4,500 ounces of heroin hydrochloride was made on board the s.s. Tai Yuan, Canton to Shanghai, viâ Hong Kong. It was found in three out of a consignment of sixty-four cases of tinned fruit, bamboo shoots, and water chestnut powder, which was on its way to Shanghai. It is improbable, however, that the drug was of Chinese origin.
Heroin Pill Divans.
17. Last year's report stated that no certain opinion could yet be given as to whether divan patrons tended to smoke heroin and opium indiscriminately. It now appears fairly certain that indiscriminate smoking is not the rule. The opium divans, which are still easily in the majority, do not cater for heroin, but some heroin divans keep an opium pipe or two handy in case the client should want to smoke opium. Heroin divans are more exclusive than opium divans: their patrons are not so poor as are the coolies who constitute the regular clientele of the average opium divan, and women, who are rarely found among the clients of an opium divan, are occasionally discovered smoking heroin pills. Heroin divans, too, are better furnished, European