Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1886-07-29
moRAL SUICIDE.
4 Crime Commltted By All Pe1soas Ad>
djcted to the Opium Habit

MORAL SUICIDE.
4 Crime Committed By All Persons Ar
dlcted to the Opium Habit
Whoever first administered opium "a
IN agonized sufferer bestowed bless
ing upon the human race that there Is
no computing. But whoever first
taught that the dose might be repeated
till its pleasant sensations created .
desire that became q need, habitual
and not to be resisted, should be Wis
tied with the severest punishment that
fate reserves for sinners. tw II
The opium habit is one that has so
firm hold now upon many that it be-
comes the public duty to expostnlate,
and to rehearse the suffering it creates
and the degradation it entails, as a
measure of warning to those in any
danger from it.
The physical effects of eating or of
smoking opium, after short time, are
SO fearful that no one who is acquainted
with them, or who realizes them,
would ever willingly become their vic
tim. Never to be able to digest any
thing, to endure constant nausea, to
have heavy pains, distress and per-
petual burning sensation in the stom-
ach, to fiutter and tremble and faint, to
feel as if you were a bubble rising III
the air, to suffer all sorts of terrifying
hallucinations, to lose much control Of
the limbs, to laugh and cry at wrong
times like simpleton, and never to be
sure how much you have made fool
of yourself. to have blur and blazing
before the eyes, binding headaches to-
gether with tOrturing pains in the
bones, to have neuralgia SO acutely
that the sensation of touching a bare
nerve in tooth is constant, to find
yourself in q condition generally
resembling delirium trcmens-a1l
that is bad enough. But to know
also that it destroys the moral
life in even greater measure, so that
women of pride and wealth, and hith-
ertO of virtue, will practice every mean
ness, craft and deception, commit
theft, forfeit modesty, all under its in
fuence, and pause at no crime in Or
der to obtain possession of the drug,
if they can not get it otherwise-to
know all that, and yet to touch it, ex-
cept by prescription, would seem to be
impossible. In short, there is no ques-
ton that opium debauches the whole
moral nature, ruins the physical and
destroys the nervous system, and is
the worst enemy that man has everen-
countered; for alcohol has its inter-
missions, however brief, but opium
never ceases for one moment in its
tyranny and cruelty. How terrible it
is even the Emperor of China declared
when, it being within his option to
seize a large number of chests of
opium belonging to the British, and
worth many million dollars, turning
the price all into his own purse, he,
with a sublimity of action unequaled
in any other historical action that we
know. ordered it to he utterly de-
stroyed rather than sell it to his peo-
pie and enrich himself by cursing them.
There are many individuals, how
ever, who will not be deferred in sea-
son from the use of this cruel drug by
any possibilities in relation either to
their physical or moral being; but it
would seem as if human pride, to say /
nothing else, might cause them to
pause when they know that the end of |
it all is idiocy, for most of us would |
prefer to die to-day under any circum-
stances rather than come to that at |
asst; and that, moreover, feminine ,
pride in especial would shrink from
into the hideous-look- |
ng object that the opium-eater event
Tally becomes.
That this generation drinks less in
oxicating liquor proportionately than .
hose that have gone before is possibly
rue, but that in one form or another it |
Uses vastly more opium is equally true.
Not merely the fine lady is its slave,
,ut the operative also. If the innumer-
lble number of chemists shops does
lot in itself tell the story, it is said that
me would soon discover 1t in taking
Up position in their neighborhood on
my Saturday night, when the custom
RS can be seen coming in for their
title Walls of poison in whatever form
hey use it. The sight might make one
remble for the generations to come. if
were not that after a mother and
laughter addicted to the cruel habit.
+ father and son. there will be no
generation to come in that family. But
hardship and want might be pleaded
n any faintest breath as some measure
f excuse for the ever-worked and often
ll-used operative who resorts 20 the
rug that shall open to her an escape,
only for the present, into land of
reams, there is no excuse for the
roman of property or of education
rho puts herself into the power of this 4
errible fascination. If she is in trouble,
he has other resources. she is not {
bliged to drink lethe or nepenthe in {
rider to forget herself. Long habit OF &
ears, culture. friends. opportunities.
ught to be sufficient to afford relief :
rom mental sorrow in other WAYS; and
she takes it from idleness, or from
lere love of the effects of the drug,
len words are too weak to reprimand 9
er.-Harpers Bazar.
Fun Among Ministers. i
A IL