The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-06-12
CULTURE or OPIUM.


Domestic Consumption is Great and Its
Effects are Dcmoralizing.
{Fron the New York TimesJ
There is fierce dispute going on just
now as to the relative merits or demer-
its of opium. Many eminent men in
the scientific world openly declare that
opium is blessing The government
experts in the country where it grows
go so far as to say that opium is a
blessing instead of being a curse to the
natives. However the vast majority
of mankind will long be of the undivi-
ded opinion that opium is the most all
crushing curse that affliCts man. The
enthusiasts or, rather extremists, of
the International Anti-Opium society
picture the condition of India under the
ban of opium in the most dreadful
manner possible. According to one of
these men, all of the six hundred mill
lion of human beings in Asia are ex-
posed to the evils of the opium trade as
legalized by the British government
In order to derive d revenue from it the
Indian government issues licenses for
the sale and consumption of this poi
sonous drug in vile places in all large
cities like Calcutta, Bombay, Madras,
Lucknow and Maulmain, and in all
towns and villages of India and Bur
NAH. These licenses are not issued for
the purpose of limiting the sale of
something that cannot be prohibited,
but they are issued with the require
ment that the holder of the license
Lot DI itXT "
a forfeit The more sold the more rev.
enue the English crown VIII receive.
AS the opium is bought from the gov
eminent agents, of course it is known
how much the holder of the license
sells. A member of the parliament
who was most bitterly opposed to this
traffic has been travelling through India
gathering facts and seeing for himself
what the condition of the natives is I'M
der an unrestricted use Of opium.
One of the opium dens of Lucknow is
graphically described. There is no Sc
crecy about selling or purchasing the
drug. 1t is handled as would be sugar,
-four or the other necessities of life.
Entering with the customers, you will
find yourself in a spacious but very
dirty courtyard, dlOuIlu WHICH al Z
ranged fifteen or twenty small rooms.
This is the establishment of the gov
eminent collectOr-the opium farmer.
The stencil is sickening and the swarm
of flies intolerable. Enter one of the
small rooms. 1t has no windows and is
very dark, but in the center is a small
charcoal fire, the glow of which lights
up the faces of nine or ten human be-
ings-men and women-lying on the
floor like pigs in a sty. a young girl
fans the fire, lights the opium pipe and
holds it to the mouth of the last conner
till his head falls heavily on the body OF
the inert man or woman who happens
to lie near him. In no groggers, in nc
lunatic or idiot asylum will one sec
such utter, helpless depravity as ap-
pears in the countenances of those in
the preliminary stages of opium drum
kenness. Here one may see handsomv
young married women, nineteen oil
twenty years of age, Sprawling Ovel
the senseless bodies of men. Here is d
much younger girl sitting among q
group of newly arrived customers sing
ing lewd songs as they hand arouni
the pipes. At night these dens are al
crowded to excess, and it lie estimated
that there are some fourteen thousand