themselves losing caste by reason of their habit third the class � which the chinese estimate to consist of forty per cent of the whole in the cities and twenty per cent in the country � which has drifted beyond hope and is continually from those above it in this are found thieves beggars actors the infamous the lost and the men who have sold lands houses wives and children and live for only much as the most degraded of our live for spirits besides these there are many who are not obliged to have recourse to selling and to get along but who such things as the education of their children and flowers for their wives heads and who from having eaten meat twice daily eat it only once or substitute for it a purely vegetable diet which must contain much honey and sugar to relieve the heat and of the mouth which the pipe produces then there are large numbers of who have barely enough to feed themselves upon who must eat in order to work and who have not one cash left for these borrow right and left and part with all they can pledge for anything every year from fresh and paying back a of the old debts till they can borrow no longer and drop into the class among these are seen the ragged wretches who to former acquaintances and beg from them the ashes of their pipes even drinking these with hot water to satisfy the craving the rich smoke what is known as the import from india which they compare to a coal fire and the native to a wood one but the manufacture of the latter is improving rapidly and as it is used to mix with the indian a generation is growing up in the upper class which knows only the mixed and apparently only the old rich use pure indian the consumption of which has fallen off though in the value of the indian import was � s the mysteries of the preparation and the varieties of the product the non both chinese and indian are now largely prepared with the ashes of the already once smoked much of it flowing only imperfectly burned into the of the pipe in the strongest prepared four of ashes of the first degree are added to every ten of crude ashes of the second and even the third burning are also used many of the poorer classes have to content themselves with a smoke of ashes only and the lowest of all of the have to satisfy themselves with eating or drinking the ashes of the third burning there is a class which can afford to buy the pure but which finds that it does not satisfy the craving but this is in a far larger one of old and rich of one s weight per day who smoke not even the very best prepared indian for their craving needs far stronger but ashes of the first degree such men give the prepared extract weight for weight value for value for the ashes and contract with shops to be supplied with all their ashes of the first burning for the rich an of prepared extract is mixed with six of ashes of the first degree this habit has in chinese a specific bad name pure appears to be seldom sold as it fails to satisfy the craving of the practised it is not only that ashes are mixed with the fresh but that they are and after being made up with to the proper are and their ashes are then eaten by the poorest class the active principle of not being consumed in the smoke owing to its lack of the eating of the ashes water tobacco which contain seven per cent and upwards of it has a very serious effect the fact that is smoked three times makes it impossible to estimate either the quantity consumed or the amount spent on the indulgence but these are of course greatly in excess of that indicated by any possible returns among the of smoking used by rich is what is called water tobacco supposed to be all washed in the water of the yellow river it is in thin cakes of a brick red colour and is said to be mixed with and that its excessive use with or without is dangerous to health this tobacco is invariably smoked in water pipes by the upper classes in in the chapter on the hospital i have mentioned the given to suicide by the of death by and will not refer to it again in this chapter i have only touched upon such mysteries and results of smoking as i have seen in my limited experience or have heard of directly from chinese through my or facts stated in a careful paper the use of by dr of except for the quotation of a remark of dr main of on i have not obtained any of my material from f from all that i have seen and heard among the chinese themselves i have come to believe that even moderate smoking enormous risks and that excessive smoking brings in its train commercial and moral ruin and physical and this on a scale so large as to threaten the national well being and the physical future of the race the most common reasons which the chinese give for the habit are pain love of pleasure and the want of occupation they say that a moderate use of the pipe advances the transaction of business the instinct the striking of and men � report of a to north by mr g j l of h b m s chinese service t this is not from any distrust of the accuracy of their � u ts for no foreigners know the lives and ways of the chinese so well as they do but simply because many people think that 