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been put down with extraordinary severity; not only is the cultivation absolutely prohibited, but even stray stalks of self-propagated poppy growing by the side of the fields are not allowed to pass unnoticed. One man at Hungtung was actually beaten because a single plant was found in his wheat-field, and the people complained that during the sowing season the laoyeh (local official) came and grubbed in their land with his own hands to look for poppy seeds. In ground that has formerly been under opium there is naturally a probability that a few stray plants will reappear, though none may have been sown, and the danger of this provides the yamên runners with au excellent opportunity for blackmailing the farmer, of which they are not slow to take advantage.
In this district as well as in some others I passed through there had been attempts to sow opium together with peas, the idea being to root up the peas later and leave the opium, or vice versi, according to whether or not the prohibition might be disregarded. The trick, however, was discovered, both the crops were destroyed and the land was confiscated. Indigo is to a limited extent being introduced to take the place of opium. It is a more profitable crop than wheat, and always commands a ready market as a dye for the ordinary blue cloth so much used in China for the making of clothes.
At Hungtung I was able to get information covering the west of the province from Fenhsi to Hsichou and down to Puhsien. Here, as elsewhere, the reports were favourable, the officials were showing great activity, and the poppy was a thing of the past.
From Pingyang-fu to Hotsin, near the Shensi border, was my next stage. Hotsin is truly described by the resident missionary, Mr. Gillies, as the "back of beyond." It is at the very edge of the province; it is not on the road to anywhere; the district is desperately poor, and, moreover, the country has never been noted for the production of opium, the little that was grown having been practically suppressed some four or five years ago by the imposition of a heavy tax in aid of the local schools. It speaks well, therefore, for the thoroughness of Ting Tajên's methods that even this remote spot should be visited by deputies from the capital. It is a pity, however, that they have not turned their attention to a large establishment here that is openly doing a thriving business in the preparation of cowhide, hoof parings, and other refuse as an adulterant for opium. I was assured at Hotsin that all the country northwards as far as Hsiangning and Kichou, about 35 miles distant, had been cleared of the plant.
Having travelled as far west as this I took the opportunity to make a day's excursion into Shensi, which is only about 10 miles further on. The Yellow River, which forms the boundary between the two provinces, has to be crossed in a ferry- boat at a place called Yn Men Kou, named after the Emperor Yu, who, together with Yao and Shun, formed the legendary trio that were supposed to have ruled in the golden age of China, about 2300 B.C. Amongst his other achievements he is said to have instituted the ferry service at this particular spot.
Once across the river there was no lack of poppy cultivation, the fields extending nearly to the water's edge. By this time (11th June) the opium had all been harvested, and the labourers were engaged in cutting off and collecting the capsules for the manufacture of opium oil.
The duty of enforcing the regulations in the south-west corner of the province has been entrusted to the salt commissioner resident at Yücheng, a large commercial town not far from Chiehehou. This official, of the rank of taotai, has shown great activity in the issue of proclamations, uprooting of poppy fields, and punishment of offenders. He has threatened to fine opium growers six times the value of their crop, and in one case at least has made good his threat; a man who had planted opium in a small patch of ground, about the tenth of a mow, near Icheng, was made to pay 20,000 cash. The taotai's jurisdiction comprises an area of over 4,000 square miles, and I was informed by two members of the China Inland Mission who had recently journeyed through it that it was uniformly free from opium cultivation.
From Hotsin, I travelled eastward to Kiangchou and Icheng. At the latter place I was shown a letter received from the missionary living at Luan-fu, stating that the same stringent measures had been taken in the west of the province as those in force to the cast of the Fen Valley, and this statement was corroborated by communications from residents at Lucheng and Licheng. On leaving leheng, I travelled over the mountains to Tsechon-fu in the extreme south-east of Shansi, crossed the border to Chinghua, the terminus of the Peking Syndicate Railway in Honan, and so returued to Peking by rail.
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My journey lasted exactly a month and covered a distance of over 400 miles, through what were formerly some of the most noted opium-producing districts of the province. I did not, however, from first to last, see a single field in Shansi under poppy cultivation.
Where I have been unable to speak from personal observation, I have quoted from information kindly supplied by missionaries, as being more reliable than that derived from native sources, although I did not fail to question the Chinese themselves whenever an opportunity occurred, and both missionaries and natives were unanimous in affirming that the suppression of the poppy was complete.
This report, it will be noticed on reference to the map, only covers the southern half of Shansi, as it was unfortunately impossible to visit the regions to the north of the capital as well in the limited time at my disposal. According to Ting Tajên, however, the troops stationed at Kueihuacheng and other districts in the north have received orders to patrol the country and see that the prohibition is rigidly enforced, and this statement is confirmed by M. Larsson, a Swedish missionary living at Tatung-fu, who states that beyond one or two unsuccessful attempts to sow poppy with cabbages there has been no opium cultivation in the parts visited by himself and his fellow workers. This is the extent of my information on the north of the province, but I am told that the amount of odium grown there was comparatively unimportant, and in view of the thoroughness with which the orders of the Taiyuan-fu authorities have been carried out in the remotest parts of the south there is no reason for doubting that the same has been the case throughout.
The measures taken in Shansi against opium, have, as was to be expected, enormously increased the price of the drug, especially in the neighbourhood of the capital, but less so in places near the frontier, on account of the smuggling. An ounce (liang) of the best nalive article cost formerly about 300 cash. At Taiyuan it now fetches over 1,000 cash (roughly 1 dollar), at Pingyang-fu 700 cash, and at Hotsin 600 cash. As two-thirds, or at the very least a half, of the adult population both male and female consume a certain amount of opium, they are, of course, very seriously affected by the rise in the cost of the drug. The poorer classes are unable to continue buying the quantity to which they have become accustomed, and so, in order to derive the same effect from a smaller amount, they have taken to drinking instead of smoking it. It would appear that a fifth of the amount consumed in the pipe, if dissolved in water and taken in that way, is sufficient to satisfy the same cravings. A great many of course are endeavouring to break off the habit altogether, as is evidenced by the large sale of anti-opium medicines, but it is to be feared that those who buy the ordinary pills sold in the shops obtain but little relief, whilst the few Governinent refuges, where a proper course of treatment is prescribed, are unsuccessful, because the patients are not cared for on the premises, and, if left to themselves, they have not the force of will to follow out the instructions, which entail a certain amount of suffering in the preliminary stages of the treatment. In the mission refuges, ou the other hand, where the patients are not only under constant supervision during the course, but are kept on for about a week after the treatment is over to make certain they are really cured, a considerable amount of good is being done, and the number of people who pass through these institutions is increasing rapidly. At Icheng, for instance, M. Trüdinger, the missionary in charge, informed me that their refuge had treated 120 patients during the last six months as against 30 or 40 in previous years. Nearly all of these were of the poorer class, and were being driven to give up the habit by the increasing price of the drug; those who are not troubled by pecuniary considerations would seem to be making no effort to abandon the vice; on the contrary, some of the richer families boast that they have laid in enough opium to last them for fifty years to come. The breaking off of the opium habit is not such
a difficult or lengthy affair as is generally supposed, three weeks or a month being as a rule sufficient to effect a cure, even in bad cases. At Hotsin I met a man who had been accustomed to smoke 4 oz. a-day, an exceptionally large amount; the average smoker seldom exceeds a tenth of that quantity, say, 4 or 5 mace. He was, however, completely cured, and had not touched the drug for several years.
The method of treatment adopted in most of these refuges is as follows:- For the first five days the patient is given doses of morphia equivalent to the amount of opium he has been in the habit of consuming; after that the dose is decreased daily by a tenth until none is given at all, and at the same time the patient is nourished on good food, and is further strengthened by means of ordinary tonie medicines. The difficulty lies in the fact that the victim has usually taken to the drug in the first instance to gain relief from some disease, and on his abandoning the habit the malady reappears. Dyspepsia, for instance, is responsible for a good
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