The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-01-02
TWENTY THOUSAND FIENDs.
The WOefuI Extent to which Opium
Is Used I'm san Francisco.
From the San Francisco Bulletin.

There are 1000 victims Of the morphine,
opium and cocaine habits of San Fran
cisco. I learned this week. Wipe out all
the normal portion of the city and you
would still live in a town whose popula-
ton is not to be despised. There are 10000
slaves, 10000 liars, 10000 embryonic murder
ers, 10000 thieves and 5000 lunatics
abroad in our midst, and one should not
wonder that there is 50 much crime, but
rather that San Francisco is not a seeth-
ing, tumultuous mass of evil.
Twenty thousand men have caved and
won many battle. Twenty thousand
men might exert an Unreasonable power
for good, and it is astounding that they
accomplish so little evil
The physician at the jail states these
hgures as the minimum. l repeated them
to friend, who answered: "Oh, yes,
but they are all Cinnamon" I had said
the same thing to the doctor, who replied:
No, there are 5000 of them white" These
we know, and you would be shocked to
see the many of whom we are not aware,
uncovered in respectable and even gh
society. San Francisco is the worst place
in the western world for the fiends of all
sorts"
"Why?" 1 asked, and the brief reply
was, Chinatown" Every other China
man, l am told is the victim of some hab-
it, and they all use a drug in moderation
as English women take claret and the
American his tobacco. The Chinaman, the
phlegmatic, nerveless, temperate, careful,
prudent, cautious oriental, is unable to DO
this. He can take enough morphine to Kali
twenty white men, but for the nervous,
highly strung Anglo-SaXOn there is no
such thing as temperance in drugs and
very little in tobacco and alcohol. He can
al 40 gffAa desire at
it's very BIRTH but he cannot resist the
temptation. His brain is so keen his
nerves are so alive to even the insplrit-
ing winds, or the depressing fogs that
little alcohol a morsel of opium, or CO.
caiue, makes black of white.
There is the same difference between the
vices of the European and the oriental
as between those of a man and woman.
The habitants of the west suffer more
keenIy, and waIlow more deeply, just as
WHEN woman once allows herself to even
become fond of alcohol she reveals to the
masculine mind vileness of thought ana
language of which he never fancled.
Frequently when one sees drunkard OF
alcohol or morphine, the victims friends
will say: How can it be? 1 knew his
father and grandfather and they were
Christians, sober and steady. There Is no
such thing as heredty'
~ The observer does not consider that the
parents and grandparents lived probably
in a small New England town, where II
one suggested claret for dinner II would
mean social ostracism. II is even forgot
ten that the ancestors suffered from indl-
gestion; that they ate mlnce pie even II
for every piece swallowed it cost 50 to
procure a doctor to digest it. They lose
sight Of the fact that the descendants
don't care for pie, but they do like whisky,
champagne and morphine, and they are as
determined to have them as were their
grandparents to devour delicious, though
homely, indigestibles.
1t is the pious, gentle. Christian, epicur-
ean grandfather, and the careless
melhodless grandmother Of 1890 who are
the rightful natural progenitors of the de-
mora.ized degraded 5000 whites of degen-
crate San Francisco of to-day. AS the
fathers and mothers of 1897, who consider
the dinner hour the most important OF the
day. and whose life is dependent upon the
competent or incompetent cooks are ours
ing humanity and their unborn offspring
by giving them appet.tes to rule them.
asked the doctor which he considers
The most demOraliZing of the drug habits,
and he replied unhesitatingly: The CO.
caine vice There is no crime that the CO.
caine fiend is not liable TO commit, Tor the
drug acts instantly upon the brain, ana
makes him insane When human being
is uDQGF lile liinutAltC Vi NOSeiiAiNt AA4'- 49,
to him will seem right, and theft will APP
pear as a virtue. 1t is so insidious ana
far-reaching in its effects that man
who becomes its victim rarely RECEIVERS.
There are very few criminals who do
not use some drug. / think the drug often
times is the cause of their wrong conduct.
They usually begin when very young boys
with the idea that it is clever ana mature
TO have vices. They first try the cigarette
and fancy they have grown several inches
in hight when they first become intoXlcat-
ed The boy who at IA or 10 becomes m
toxicated will usually remain drunKard:
"Theu he is a slave to two habits, and
he has very little strength left. so When
he begins to think it would be very I'M
proving TO take opium, at first II Is done
without the idea of always continuing II.
Opium gives him an Importance and pres
tige among boys which far outweights the
glory of tobacco, beer and whisky. He
takes 1t jauntily and boastifuliy in the
beginning and like all sly masters, it
leaves the need of itself felt by the young,
easily excited body. BY the time these
boys who merely wish in the beginning
to swagger a little, have attained their
majority. opium is more necessary to them
than bread. They forget to eat, but they
never arc Obvious of their opium, and
they will lie, steal or murder to obtain it,
They are startling proofs of mans incon-
stancy to all but his vices"
what becomes of them?' l asked the
doctor, ana he replied: Their only hope
of longevity is if they commit crime and
get into prison While there they may
surreptitiously procure drugs, but they are
practically shut off from them and they
may live to a good age. However. when
they come from the prison they usually go
back to their Old haunts and become opium
hends again until they are in prison, Each
term in confinement is like a temporary
gold cure"
How would you cure them?" l asked
the physician, and he answered first by
shaking his head despaiTingiy, and then
in the following words:
I'D take the drug away from them,
leaving them but a very little each day.
The patient will suffer all the fortunes of
the earth and of the damned. Every
nerve has been strained and unduly ex-
cited, and there is, l know, indescribable
pain This will last days. l should give
the patient less opium, and \ good tonic.
With rest and this treatment for several
months the patient would be able, If he
so desires, TO afterwards live the life of
normal man. l should treat a drunkard in
the same way, but l should remove both
the drunkard ana the opium victim from
old influences, or soon they both would
be in as bad condition as formerly"
The jailer told me that they refuse to
permit wife to kiss her husband in jail
B. L.