The Camden weekly journal. [volume] (Camden, South-Carolina) 1853-1861, 1853-02-15
NUMBER7. :.
tor. Capt. Ericsson is native Of Sweden but
the New World will have the honor fLis bril-
liant discovery Geo. Home gazette. ss
From Huafs Merchants Magazine.
The Opium Trade.

f4s. $500
From Hunts Merchants Magazine.
The Opium Trade.
We published in the numbers of the Mer-
chants Magazine and Commercial Review for
July and August, 1850, two papers under the ti.s
tie of "The Opium Trade: as carried on between
India and China, including Sketch Of its His !
tory Extent, Effects, &c." which were prepared
expressly for our Journal by DR.. Nathan Allen,
Massachusetts. Opium is, as is we'll known,
contraJand article among the Chinese, and the
trade is prohibited under severe penalties. It's,
however, carried on by the East India Compaply,
under the direct saction of the English Govern
ment; and is forced upon the miserable and en-
slaved population. 1t is estimated that four
hundred thousand human beings in the Celestial
Empire are sweptSoff annually by this perllicious
poison, the consideration for which are some mil
lions Of dollars to the East India Company.
The Bombay Telegraph reviews the articles ia Z
the Merchants Magazine and fully concurs ii4l
the view Of our correspondent, DIR. Allen. The,
reviewer says.
: As an article of Commerce, opium stands out
withoutla parallel. From the skillful n,anage-s
ment and cultivation of about 100000 acreseof
land, The East India Company produce an arti-
tie which, sold at profit of several hundred per
cent yields to them net revenue of nearly three
millions sterling. We do not here include the
Malwa opium-a seventh of the whole revenue
of the country, raised from an extent Of more
than million ofsquare miles,
From the transport of this drugsby a few yes
sells named opium clippers, a few mercantile
houses are also realizing magnificent profits,
while the Chinese themselves, thesgAnd ceonsu
mess of the drug, partaw;;tasa aive or six million
pounds sterling p% annum.
The most Astounding fact Of tile opium trade
need yet to be specified, VIZ, that christian sem
lsibiities have not yet been adequately reused in
relation to its il iquities and horrors
That professedly Christian government
should by its sole authority, and on its: sole re-
sponsibisy, produce drug which is not only
contraband, but essentially detrimental to the
best interest of humanity; that it should aanu-
ally receive into its treasury scores Of rupees,
which, if they cannot, save by too licentious fig
ure, be termed '.the price of blood = yet are de-
monstrably the price Of the .physiel waste, the
social wretchedness and moral destruction of this
Chinese, aud yet that no sustained renonstrances
from the press secular or spiritual, nor from so
cietv, should issue forth against the unEghteons
system, is surely an astonishing fact in The his
tory Of our Christian ethics
An American, accustomed to receive from us
impassioned arguments against his own ,nation,
on account Of slavery, might we'll be pardoned*
were he to say to US, with sorewhass of intem-szs
perate feeling, physician heal thyself," and to.
expose with bitterness the awful Inconsistency OF
Britain's vehement denunciation of American
slavery, while, by most deadly measures, further
ing Chinese Generalization.
- The ReFiew, in referring to the havoc. of hlls
man life, closes as follows:
What unparalleled destruction! The immS
lations of an Indian Juggernauth dwindle into
insigni6cance before it! We again repeat, moth
ing but slavery is worthy to be compared for its
horrors with this monstrous system Of iniquity.
As we write, we are amazed at the enormity pf
its unprincipledness, and the large extent Of rs
destructiveness. Its very enorminy seems IN
some measure TO protect it. Were it minor
evil, it seems as though one might grapple with
it. Ash is, it is beyond the compass Of our
grasp. No words are adequate to expose its
evil, no fires ofindignant feeling are fierce enough
to blast it.
The enormous wealth it brings into our cofem
is its only justification, the cheers of vceenslayed
wretehes its only welcome; the curses of all that
IS moral and yirtuous in an empire of three hun
dred and sixty millions, attend its introduction;
the prayers Of enlightened Christians deprecate
its course the Indignation Of all righteous minds
is its only "God speed " -
1t takes with it fire and sword, slaughte and
death; it leaves behind it bankrupt fortunes, i'd
iotized minds, broken hearts and ruined souls
Foe to all the interests of humanity, hostile to
the scanty virtues of earth, and warning against
the everfowiDg benevolence Of heaven; may we
soon have to rejoice over its abolition.