Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-05-28
THE OPIUM HABIT.

The miserable death of the young Har-
ward student, Mills, from opium smoking
is lamentable affair, and awakens wide
spread attention. 1t was terrible blow to
the family of the victim; one that can
scarcely be comprehended by any but the
afflicted. But will it teach opium smokers
a lesson, or serve to restrain those tempted
to indulge in the drug? We fear not Il
any who have become addicted to the
opium pipe could be restrained by exam
pie, the wretched lives of the devotees o.
the habit, their repulsiye countenances
their wasted forms, their nerveless manner
the wreck of their bodies and their intel
lects, would long ago have operated as re
straining influences. But with thousand.
of horrible examples of the debasiDg in
huence of the use Of the drug, the certain
ruin that follows in the wake of the prac
tice of smoking it. and the rapid mental
and physical decline it insures, the vice In
creases, and the army of lis victims con
stantly swells. 1t might have been that
without Chinese influences in our midst
opium smoking would have grown to ;
considerable extent among our people, but
it is uudeniabie that the Chinese have
greatly aided in the spread Of the practice
But for the contamination of their pres
ence it would not have attained its present
alarming proportions The most re-
markable fact in connection with opium
smoking, in this country is the apparent
Indifference of society to its results and
what it promises for the generations. 1t is
perfectly weli-known that it is most per.
nicious vice, one that the law erects very
properly into 4 crime; one that ought to
be crushed out at once with a heavy hand
and because it is secretly committed and
exposed less frequently to light than any
other indulgence, one that should be pur-
sued by the law with the utmost vigor,
Yet there is really but little thought given
to the subject, widespread as IS the evil
and patent as are its evidences of growth.
Occasionally a raid is made upon CHI
nese opium joint, but for the most part the
law officers manifest but little disposition
to face the evil, and it is because the moral
sentiment behind them is torpid SO far as
this subject is concerned. Such sad cases
as that Of young Mills will probably
quicken it little, but only for q
brief time. When a very large percentage
of the youth of the land is fast bound in
the chains Of the vice, there will probably
be an awakening to the necessity for action
and then the struggle will be to confns
and restrict it, for it may be-indeed il
probably then will be-impossible to crush
1t out, as might be done now if the people
were alive to the need for such action. |
1t is not strangled in its infancy, the danger
is that 1t will attain such proportions that
like liquor drinking, we will be told tha
the appetite cannot be defeated, and tina
the very best mankind can do for itsel
will be to exercise some sort of eontro
over it. While the forecast may seem in
tolerable, the results of indulgence in tn,
use of other agencies of debasement iustif,
the fear that the opium habit" ma,
come to be looked upon as one of those i'll
II is impossible to suppress.