E 5-
style beds being in general use among them, though spring mattresses rarely occur, the usual Chinese type boards prevailing. It costs a little more to smoke heroin, at least ten cents for four superior or seven inferior pills, whereas the ordinary coolie spends only five cents on his smoke of inferior opium. Discriminating people prefer heroin because it does not cause constipation or make the breath foul, as opium of indifferent quality does, and because it is cleaner to handle.
18. The manufacturer, in Shanghai, of the well-known "Tiger" brand of pills was reported to have died during the year. Plenty of Tiger labels still occurred, however, though the pills they covered probably originated in South China.
VI. OTHER DANGEROUS DRUGS.
19. There was one seizure of crude morphia and three of morphine pills. The former was particularly interesting, as the drug concerned was almost certainly of Chinese origin, manufactured in China from Chinese opium. It was found in false sides and bottoms of three leather suitcases, and in large, flat, silky paper packets sewn into Chinese padded quilts and pillows, luggage which was being taken off a Wuchow boat by a couple of Chinese men. The morphia was found on analysis to be very impure. The Police found dumped in the street in Wanchai one lot of 88,000 pills, covered by the common Tiger brand label, which turned out to be not heroin but morphine pills.
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20. In this connection it may be mentioned that the League of Nations has issued warnings to the effect that international manufacturers of illicit drugs, finding Europe and Turkey now too hot for them, are attempting to set up factories in China and Manchuria. A report in the "Hsin Shang Pao" of Yunnanfu, dated 26th May, 1934, to the effect that valuable imported machinery for the manufacture of morphia had been discovered in Yunnan as the result of a seizure by the Customs of morphia intended for export, tends to confirm this suspicion.
VII. REVENUE STATION AT FAN LING,
21. For the first time, a party from this department was stationed in the New Territories throughout the year. The party consisted of one European Revenue Officer, eleven Chinese Revenue Officers, and, latterly, one Chinese Female Searcher. The visible results of its work appear in Tables XIIa and XIIa, which, however, do not represent the sum of its value, which is largely preventive. Night visits to licensed and illicit distilleries are now facilitated. The Police are reinforced in their work of patrolling the frontier, and the new sprinkling of revenue specialists of course gives point to that work, as far as this Department is concerned. The control of licensed tobacconists and of Chinese spirit shops is tightened. The searching of trains has had a salutary effect, and little contraband is now found on them. The New Territories Police no longer have to send in to Hong Kong for analysis all samples of tobacco and spirit seized.