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the breach, more often than not in the same house and floor, for an opium divan once established increases its good-will from month to month, and the real keeper can always for a few dollars per month, get "tai-dongs" who are prepared to take the blame and go to prison.
Opium Shops.
The sale of Government opium continued to be restricted to the Head Office, six Government Shops, and 24 salaried retailers in outlying districts. In consonance with recommendations of the League of Nations it was decided towards the end of the year to abolish 13 retailers within the environs of Hong Kong and Kowloon and replace them by 7 new Government opium shops which are to be opened on February 1st, 1936, thus leaving only the New Territories and very inaccessible parts of Hong Kong and Kowloon to be served by the retailers.
V.--HEROIN.
The practice of smoking heroin pills has now become endemic and the year's seizures amounted to 517,490 pills and 86 ozs. of heroin. The major seizure of heroin was made on S.S. "Tjisaroea" to which reference has already been made. This heroin however was not intended for Hong Kong, and was probably shipped from Shanghai to Java. Casual seizures included two bottles bearing Japanese labels and it is possible that some of the local heroin was smuggled from Japan by boats calling at Hong Kong.
The difficulties in suppressing this new business are immense for one ounce of heroin which is easily concealed can make about 30,000 pills and unfortunately the possession of the major ingredients of a pill, without heroin, is no offence.
Moreover, although formerly pills were probably imported into Hong Kong, there has now sprung up a mushroom growth of heroin factories, mostly of the small hand type kind with easily transportable apparatus. The immense number of empty houses in Hong Kong facilitated the establishment of these places. Normally a gang rented a floor for at most 3 or 4 days, when the mixture for one consignment of heroin pills was prepared, and at the last minute enough heroin was brought in to produce the finished product. The pills were then dried on the premises and immediately despatched to distributing centres. The apparatus was then packed up and the gang moved on. It was thus easy to keep outside the law, for information was usually received too late. The master of a factory never resided on the premises and only occasionally visited them so that when arrests were made poor dupes, earning a few dollars per month, alone were found.