The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-03-20 00:00:00

THE POPPY.

The following is derived from Porter's Tropical Agricul-
ture :—" The characteristics of the poppy are a flower with
an oval indented empalement, composed of two oval, concave
leaves, which fall off. The corolla is composed of four large
roundish petals, which spread open with a great number of
hair-like stamina, terminated by oblong, compressed, erect
summits. In the centre is placed a large, roundish germen,
having no style, but crowned by a plain, radiated, target-
shaped stigma ; the germen afterwards becomes a large cap-
sule, crowned by the plain stigma, having one cell opening
in many places at the top under the crown, and which is
filled with small seeds. There are nine species of this plant,
besides numerous varieties.

" The papaver somnifetwn is the species from which opium
is 'obtained. Its roots and stem attain to rather a large size,
and abound with a bitter juice • the stalk is three or four feet
high, having oblong indented leaves resembling those of the
lettuce. The flower has somewhat the appearance of a tulip.
"The best soil, well manured, is required for the successful
growth of this plant, and the crop demands much labour and
attention during its whole progress." Irrigation is then ex-
tensively used—seven times at intervals of ten or twelve
days. Some of the plants are thinned out.
" While the plants are very young those which are thus
removed are used as pot-herbs, but when they have attained
to the height of about a foot and a half they have an intoxi-
cating property, which renders them unfit for this purpose.
" The flowers begin to bloom in February, and the capsules
become in a fit state for extracting the opium in March or
April.

."
This fitness is shown about seven days after the petals
fall off, by the capsule assuming a whitish colour, and by
exhibiting a degree or hardness. Incisions are then made
into it with an iron instrument, having three teeth at the
distance of half a line from each tether. This is drawn from
bottom to top of the capsule so as to penetrate the skin.
The wounds are made in the afternoon and evening, gene-
rally, near to the hour of sunset; in sound places, the inci-
sions are repeated for three successive days ; in others, the
operation is repeated every second day for a fortnight or
three weeks. From these wounds a white juice exudes,
which concretes upon the capsule. It is scraped off with a
small iron scoop, in the morning at day break, the work
being discontinued after the dew is dispersed. From every
fresh incision the produce becomes less abundant, and of an
inferior quality. The capsules of the whole of a field are
wounded, and the opium collected. in about a fortnight.—
This is kneaded with water till it assumes the consistence of
pitch.

" The raw juice being thus procured, the preparation of it
is carried on in India under the immediate superintendence
of the Company's agents. The process consists of evaporat-
ing the aqueous particles by the heat of the sun. A small
proportion of oil, extracted from poppy seeds, is mixed with
the opium, to prevent the drying of the resin : it is then
formed into cakes, and covered with leaves of the poppy:
when sufficiently dry. it is packed in chests with the chaff of
poppy seeds. A considerable reduction of weight takes place
in opium after it has been kept for any time. It is reckoned
that fresh opium loses 15 per cent. in weight by being kept ;
and therefore it is usual, in packing the chests, to include
this quantity, over and above the weight which each chest
should contain. Extensive buildings are attached to the
opium department, iii the particular districts where it is rais-
ed. Those at Patna are considered the largest in India."
EFFECTS OF OPIUM.

We have before us several authentic works, the writers of
all of which describe the dreadful physical effects of this
drug when immoderately used, in terms of nearly equal im-
port,—of reprobation of those who supply it, and of pity for
the wretched and unfortunate millions who become its vic-
tims. We extract the following description from the Colo-
nial Magazine, as the most vivid and comprehensive we have
yet met with _ _ _

"There can be no doubt that opium (the inspissated juice
of the poppy) is a drug of the most pernicious quality when
used to excess, or continued for any length of time. It af-
fects principally the nervous system, and is not, like beer,
wine, or spirits, received into the digestive system previous
to its action on the nerves. As a medicine, it, like all other
poisons, is of great value. It diminishes pain, sooths irrita-
tion, and procures repose for the sufferer, when all other
means have failed. In large doses it almost instantly de-
stroys life by destruction of the nesOrsus system, which is in-
dispensable to the circulation of rite blood. Unless when
taken for the relief of disease, and then even administered
with the greatest caution, the continued action of opium, as
a sensual stimulant, tends rapidly to the wasting of youth,
health, strength, and beauty. Those who begin its use at
twenty may expect to die at thirty years of age : the coun-
tenance becomes pallid, the eyes assume a wild brightness,
the memory fails, the gait totters, mental anti moral courage
sink, and a frightful marasmus or atrophy reduces the victim
to a ghastly spectacle, who has ceased to live before he had
ceased to exist. There is no slavery so complete as that of
the opium-taker; once habituated to its dose as a factitious
stimulant, every thing-witt -be endured rather than the priva-
tion; and the' nhappy being endures all the mortification of
a consciousness of his own degraded state, while ready to sell
wife and children, body and soul, for the continuance of his
wretched and transient delight ; transient indeed—for at
length the utmost effect produced is a temporary suspension
of agony, and, finally, no dose of the drug will remove or re-
lieve a state of sufferings, which it is utterly impossible to de-
scribe. The pleasureable sensations and imaginative ideas
arising at first soon pass away; they become fainter and
fainter, and, at last, entirely give place to horrid dreams, ap-
palling pictures of death : spectres of fearful visage haunt the
mind—the light which once seemed to emanate from heaven
is converted into the gloom of hell—sleep, balmy sleep, has
tied for ever—night succeeds day only to be clothed with
never-endinghorrors—incessant sickness, vomiting, diarrhea,
and total cessation of the digestive functions ensue ; and
death at length brings, with its annihilation of the corporeal
structure, the sole relief to the victim of sensual and criminal
indulgence."

Sucl is a picture of the horrurs and premature decay that
overtake the infatuated opium eaters and smokers ; and
surely no civilised government can be justly blamed for en-
deavouring to diminish the importation of a drug, the effects
of which are so morally and physically debasing and destruc-
tive.

THE STOPPAGE OF THE TRADE, &c.
At what period the use of opium commenced in China is
not known, but its growth was known to themselves for
ages, and it is still largely cultivated by them in some of the
provinces. Up to 1786 the Portuguese supplied the Chinese
with foreign opiuth, after which the trade was taken up by
the English, who formed a depot at Lintin in 1802. It was
formerly admitted on payment of a duty, but towards the
end of the last century its importation was entirely prohibited,
and in 1796 those found guilty of smoking it were punished
with the pillory, and a certain number of blows with the
bamboo. Within the last fifty years the annual consump-
tion in China has increased from 1,000 to about 30,000 chests
of 1561 b. weight each. "In spite," says the writer we last
quoted, " of strong denunciations on paper of 'the Chinese
authorities, the clandestine trade went on ; the East India
Company were compelled to take the preparation • of the
opium, in the rich districts of Bengal, Bohar, and Benares,
into their own hands, •and sold it annually at Calcutta by
auction to the highest bidder." This was only one portion
of the opium trade. Of late years the poppy was found to
grow in Malwa and Central India. In 1837 no less than
20,882 chests were sent to China from the former place
through Bombay alone, and when the trade was stopped the
importation for the year would, it is said, have amounted., to
40,00 Q chests ! . • • •
The quantity imported iu 1837-38 into China, according

n the return of the Canton General Chamber of Commerce,

Chests. Dollars.
Patna.... ...... . 14,116 value 7,777,916
Benares 3,638 1,731,688
Malwa • 7,891 3,995,026

25,645 13,504,630
Worth, at 4s. 6d. per dollar, £2,700,926 sterling.
This is exclusive of what was clandestinely introduced.

At Lintin (previous to the stoppage) the opium was kept
by the English in armed ships, and was delivered to the
Chinese by written orders from Canton. The nature of the
transaction is thus described by a Chinese waiter :—" At
Canton," he says, " there are brokers of the drug, who are
called melters. These pay the price of the drug into the
hands of the resident foreigners, who gave them orders for
the delivery of the opium from the receiving ships. There
are carrying boats plying up and down the river, and these
are vulgarly called ' fast crabs' and ' scrambling dragons.'
They are well armed, and are manned with some scores of
desperadoes, who ply their oars as if they were wings to fly
witb. All the custom-houses and military forts which they
pass are largely bribed. If they happen to encounter one of
the armed cruising-boats, they are so adacious as to resist,
and slaughter and carnage ensue."
The general mode of consuming opium in China is by in-
haling the fumes through a peculiarly constructed wooden
pipe. Prohibitory regulations are• found ineffectual, so cor-
rupt are the authorities, who are all accessible to bribery by
the traders, and themselves indulge in the use of the drug. A
few years ago one of the Chinese censors addressed a me-
morial to the Emperor, stating that "the magistrates of dis-
tricts issue proclamations, interdicting the clandestine sale of
opium, at the same time that their kindred, and clerks, and
servants smoke it as berme. The police, influenced by the
people in the public offices, become the secret purchasers of
opium, instead of labouring for its suppression ; and thus
all interdicts and regulations become vain."
Such are the profits on the drug, and such the impunity
generally with which it can be imported; that a contraband
trade of the annual value of above £3,000,000 sterling has.
grown up in this article alone. The baneful practice of
smoking opium has descended from the higher to the poorer
classes, so that the vice has become general throughout the
whole empire.