Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1896-05-16

hand and transfers the cooked pill from the
yen-hock to the bowl of the pipe, where he
again molds It with the yen-hock until It u
a little butte 1-like thing with hole IN TIE
bowl. Dropping the yen-hock, the cook
now uses two hands for the pipe. He OK
tends the mouthpiece toward the one whose
turn 1t Is to smoke and as this latter leans
fcrward in readiness the cook draws the
bowl toward the flame until the heat sets
the pill to boiling.
Whereupon, the smoker takes a long,
deep draw at the pipe, the pill splutters and
fries and a moment later the smoker sinks
back TRANQUILITY. An odor, heavy aromatic,
agreeable and yet disagreeable, hangs in the
air and makes its way with peculiar pow
ers of penetration. The group about the
layout talk in low voices and watch the
cook deity molding another pill The lit
tie flame casts strong yellow light on their
faces as they cuddle about the layout. AS
the pipe passes and passes around the circle
the voices drop to a mere indolent cooling,
and the eyes that so laZiy watch the COOK
at his work glisten and glisten from the
influence of the drug until they resemble
flashing bits of silver.
Like n Campfire Group.
There is similarity in coloring and COM
position in a group of men about mid
night campfire in a forest and n group of
smokers about the layout tray with it's tiny
light Everything, of course, is on a small
er scale with the smoking. The flame Is
only an inch and half perhaps in height
and the smokers huddle closely i'll order
that every person may smoke undisturbed.
But there is something in the abandon Of
the poses, the wealth of light on the faces
and the strong mystery of shadow at the
backs of the people that brings the two
scenes into some kind of artistic brother
hood. And just the lazy eyes about
campfire faSten themselves dreamfully up
On the blaze of logs, SO do the lazy eyes
about an opium layout faSten themselves
upon the little yellow flame.
There is but one pipe, one lamp ana one
cook to each smoking layout Pictures OF
nine or ten persons sitting in arinchairs
and smoking various kinds OF curiouSly
carved tobacco pipes probably serve well
enough, but when they are named interior
of an Opium Dem and that sort of thing,
it is absurd. Opium could not be smoked
like tobacco. A pill is good for one long
draw. After that the cook mods another.
smoker would just as soon choose a gal
lows an armchair for smoking purposes.
He likes to curl down on a mattress placed
on the floor in the quietest corner of a
Tenderloin fiat, and smoke there with no
light but the tiny yellow spear from the
layout lamp.
1t is a curious fact that it is rather the
custom to purchase for layout tray one
of those innocent black tin affairs which
are supposed to be placed before baby as
he takes his high chair for dinner
Under the Spell of Opium.
If beginner expects to have dreams of
an earth dotted with white porcelain towers
and Sky of green silk, he will, from all
accounts be much mistaken. The Opium
Smokers Dream" seems to be mostly a mis-
take. The influence OF dope is evidently
| a fine languor, I. complete mental rest. The
problems of life no longer appear. Exist
ence is peace. The virtues of mans
friends, for instance, loom beautifully
against his own sudden perfection. The
| universe is readjusted. Wrong departs. in
justice vanishes; there is nothing but a
quiet, soothing harmony of all things
until the next morning.
And who should invade this momentary
land of rest, this dream country, If not the
people Of the Tender!oln, they who are at
once representative and hopeless, the peo-
pie who think more upon death and the
mysteries of life, the chances of the here
after, than any other class, educated or I'M
educated. Opium holds out to them its lie
ana they embrace it eagerly, expecting TO
ma definition of peace, but they awake
to find the formidable labors of life. crown
more formidable. And if the pip" should
happen 10 ruin their lives they clin.. the
more closely to it because then ii stands be-
tween them and thought
STEPHEN CRANE.