The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-09-29
HOW THE SUBTLE DRuG. rs pRU
PARED FOR THE WORLDS
MARKET
NO EVIL EFFECTS ON WORKERS
Worlds Opium House Is a wonder.
fui InstitutiOn-Workm Go
Boating in Seas OF
Poison.
From Macmillan's Magazine.

'ilcdllohS, consisting of ratings covered
with wire netting and dominated by a
second gateway, has still to be sur
mounted. Before the irresistible author
lty of his pass this barrier falls, and he
Is at last in the inmoSt Shrine of the
worlds opium house
Sklrtlng some lofty buildings the ex
plorer arrives at a larfe COURTYARD in
which about l 200 earthern jars are living
arranged in patches of a hundred each
Ihese Jars contain the opium as it comes
IN from the districts and their contents
having just undergone a rigorous exam
mauon by the superintendent are now
pefng carried away, one by one, by a
train OF braWny, half-naked coolies Each
OF these jars contains maund of
opium, equal in weight to eighty-two
pounds avoirdupois but the men poise
them on their heads and trot away as
unconcernedly as a party of ants hurry
Ing to their nest with booty from a
neighboring cornfield. We follow the
men through a doorway on the left into
room in which for, a few seconds it Is
not possible to make out what is going
on, so confusing to the sight is the
abrupt change from the white glare of
the courtyard to the twilight of this lofty
chamber
1t is soon, however, discovered to be
quadrangular in shape, and its central
Der of stone cisters or vats with walls
raised about five feet from the floor
Between every group of three or four Of
these watts runs a narrow alley at right
angles to the passage around the edges
of the room. To the uninitiated visitor
the scene is one of indescribable con-
fusion. Men carrying jars Of opium run
in different directions; Others empty
handed, hurry back to the courtyard:
women with fba sins of nri,,,,o +boi,,
heads race down the allays and disap-
pear; a Jangling sound as of falling metal
weights mingles with continuous duh
splaShlng as of stones being thrown into
well; the high-pitched tones of the
women run through the hoarser rumble
OF the mems voices, while now and then
the strtdent notes of some person in au-
thor1ty cut across this chaos of sound
1t is somewhat surprising to find that
nothing but hustle and activity reign in
the very heart of the Sleep Gods strong
hold Hundreds of thousands Of pounds
of opium lie stored in this room, but
there is nothing in the quick movements.
bright eyes and healthy faces of the
sWarming coolies to show that the drug
has any attraction for them. Each one
OF them, we notice, who carries an opium
jar Ealts moment at the doorway, where
he receives directions to what particular
vat he has to take his load There a
gang of men await. his arrival, part of
them seated on the fiat walls of the vat
while the others help the carrier to re
move the load from his head. The lat
ter also hand up full jars to the men
seated on the walls, who proceed to
scrape out the contents with their hands
and throw the opium in masses into the
watts, thus producing the dull splashlng
sound aforesaid. Climbing up the steps
alongside the walls of one of the watts
(marked as holding 1,500 maunds or over
1.200 hundred weight) we find it is full to
the brim of a soft, mahogany-colo
substance, which here and there has be-
gun to harden into glistening crust.
This substance is opium, and we are in
formed that most of the watts we see in
the room will be filed and emptied sew
eral times before the seasons work is
concluded. To step into one of these watts
would be as dangerous as stepping into
a quicksand yet they have daily to be
entered by men whose duty it is to re-
move certain Quantity OF their contents
for the days work. The difficulty is
overcome by means of a broad plank on
which the men stand as on raft.
= Outside the vat, on the quivering,
spongy surface of the contents of which
these men are floating a number of
women stand, each with a brass basin
in her hands, eagerly waiting her turn
to have it filled. The men scoop up the
opium with their hands and fill the
basins, which are instantly hurried off to
be weighed at a neighboring scale and
then taken by the nearest alley to the
check scales where a crowd of impatient
FELLOW carriers surround a weary-eyed
assistant, who is so busy that he has
scarcely time to breathe The dangling
s noise of weights and scales is caused by
the operation we have been watching,
n1o1 411A
this part of the factory now unravels it
self into order and methodcal work. AS
fast as the men at the check scales weigh
off a tagar of opium Gas the brass basin
is called), the woman to whom it be-
longs haStens with it to an adjoining
room, where four oblong shallow stone
cisterns occupy each of the four corners,
leaving a cross-shape passage in the
middle. In each of these watts stand
three or four muscular coolies. whose
brawny limbs shining with sweat, look
as If they had been cast in bronze They
are armed with large wooden rakes,
which they wheel around their heads and
bring down as boilermaker, uses a.
sledge hammer, striking the teeth of their
weapons deep into the masses of opium
and dragging away portions of it, which
they deposit in different directions around
them.
This furious battle is only one of the
processes by which the opium is properly
mixed. When the men with the rakes
have worked at it a sufficient time. their
place is taken by another set of men,
VINO leap into the watts, and Selling hold
of series of long cords hanging from
the roof trees, commence a slow process
sion through the adhesive substance in
Which they are standing knee deep The
men are often in this foot bath of opium
for several hours, but no ill effects have
ever been observed to follow from this
partial immersion in so powerful a drug
Passing from this scene of stress and
turmoil, we enter another room of pre-
cisely the same size and arrangement.
The watts in this room contain the opium
of previous mixing, and are already
giving up their contents to the busy
hands of the workmen in the manufacture
ing room. Here are a number of scales
at which large tin vessels filled with
opium from the watts are being weighed
AS each vessel passes the scales a car
rier snatches it up and darts into the
caking room, where the opium is being
packed in the form in which John China
man is accustomed to obtain 1t from the
merchant princes who deal in this ex-
penSive luxury.
The hum of many voices gradually in
creasing in strength has for some time
warned us that we are near the calling
room. AS one steps into this long and
crowded hall, the first sensation is one
of bewilderment. A thousand men are
around us, all working as if their lives
depended upon the rate at which they
could turn out their task Again 1t
strikes one very forcibly that, if the pop
Ply god sleeps his workmen are unusually
wide awake.
number Of iron cages occupy the CEN
trail portion of the room, in each of which
sits a placid weighman, Weighing out