Evening star., 1895-03-23

tea. 1t Will surprise many people to know
what an Immense number of tea drinkers
there are in the world. Great Britain IS
said to drink 1OOO0O,0OO cups of tea per
day, and every man, woman or child in
Great Britain consumes five pounds of tea
every year. The Australians are the great
est tea drinkers in the world. and they
average over seven pounds per year. They
take great deal of Chinese and Indian
teas. The greatest consumers of the Jap
anese teas are the United States and Can
ada, and We take the bulk of the Japanese
teas. Tea drinking is increasing IN
America, and the English drink more tea
and less coffee every year. The Japanese
and Chinese are drinking tea all the time,
he calls 1t is estimated that there are
5O0OOO,OO0 tea drinkers in China and India.
The Chinese and Opium.
I am told that the falling off Of the tea
crop of China is more than made up by the
increase In the opium product. Opium is
grown now all over China, and there are
plantations of it in the north beyond the
Chinese wall. I was greeted with the sick
ening smell Of opium wherever went, end
IN the city of Foochow, which is about as
big as St. Louis, there are one thousand
registered opium dens. Shanghai Is filled
with opium joints, and the biggest opium
den in the world is to be found there. 1t
is an immense three-story building covering
what would be about one-half Of an Ameri-
can city block. and it is furnished as gor-
geously as were the caves of Monte Cristo.
The cushions of the beds are of the finest
velvet, and the frames of the couches are
iniaid with mother-of-pearl. There are
hundreds OF rooms. and when visited this
den, the air was blue with opium smoke.
Upon some of the beds men and women
laid together and smoked side by side.
There were haggard old men and fresh
young boys smoking together, and there
were manderins In silks and coolies in
rags in the different rooms. The entrance
was lighted with the electric light, and the
whole of the interior was made tip of the
finest carvings of costly teak wood. The
different rooms were graded, and you could
get smoke here for a few cents, or pay
ing nearly as high as a dollar for some of
the pipes and the most gorgeously fitted
up rooms. A great deal of the smoking Is
done in the private houses, and it is as
common i'll China for your host to offer
you IL pipe of opium as it Is in America to
be offered cup of tea or a glass of wine.
There is considerable discussion among the
foreigners of China as to the effect of
opium upon those who use 1t.
1t Is claimed by many that the habit is
no worse than that Of drinking. and a re-
port from the hospital in Canton shows
that the moderate opium smoker gains
flesh rather than loses it. The effect of
smoking opium Is said to be less Injurious
than that Of eating 1t, and the Chinese use
the drug differently from us. We take 1t
to make us sleep. The Chinaman uses it
as we do wine. to stimulate conversation.
and two Chinese gentlemen will lie and
smoke for hours while they chatter to one
another. The habit is very costly, and the
poorest of the Chinese cannot afford to
smoke great deal. There are thousands
of moderate opium smokers in China. just
as there are thousands of moderate drink:
ers in the United States, and the number
of smokers is said to be increasing At
the present time I w&s told that about one
tenth of the people smoke opium, and I
heard many instances of men having ruin
ed themselves by the habit. All of the
hospitals which are kept up by the mis-
sionaries have many patients who wish
to be cured of opium smoking and some
of the wealthy Cinnamon buy certain kinds
of food with a hope Of strengthening them
selves against it, I saw a number Of opium
sots in China. They are called by the peo-
pie opium devils. and not few of them
smoke themselves into their graves. Now
and then one of the mandarins will try to
stop the traffic in his district, and the taxes
on opium are always high. The great
Chang Chi Tung, the viceroy of Hangkow,
made such an attempt during my stay in
China, but it was failure. and the opium
saloons are as wide open as ever
FRANK G. CARPENTER.