Woodruff County news., 1909-02-25


 tlan era And at first it was used only TOT medicinal purposes. Then, as now, many Chinese were afflicted with levers, and opium helped them. Meantime the Turks had introduced | opium into India, where the natives soon engaged in it's cultivation on large scale. The Chinese, after form. ing the opium habit, then bought their supplies in India. At that time there was considerable export trade from China to India, and the junks that car ried other merchandise from the Celes- tlal empire brought back the raw ma. terial from which opium is made.
 In 1868 the habit had become so widespread that the emperor noting it's ill effects, issued an imperial de- | cree against the use of and the traffic in opium. In the original decree he prescribed only moderate penalties for its violation, but as his subjects did not obey him, he increased the sever- ity of the penalties until death or trans portation became the lot of every one who persisted in the use of the baneful pipe. And, as the Chinese had then been smoking opium less than 50 years, they broke off the habit just as an American youth who has smoked tobacco only a year or two can give up the use of tobacco.
 But, like the American boy who 'swears off and then in two months goes back to his tobacco, the Chinese in a few years resumed the use of | opium and again a stern emperor stopped it. Nor was opium again smoked in China until the latter part of the eighteenth century.
 British rule having been imposed upon India, the government in 1757 granted to the East India Company a monopoly of the trade in opium. The East India Company at once cast its eyes Chinaward. There it saw an em- peror who had forbidden the importa- tion or use of opium there it also saw laws fixing the opium smokers penalty at death. But there it also saw Chi nese gold, and plans were at once laid to provide the Chinese with opium whether their emperor would have it or not.
 The scheme devised was for Brit ish ships to lie off Chinese ports and deliver opium to such Chinese mer- chants as might come out to buy. And the plan worked so well that in 179O 600,000 pounds of the forbidden pro- duct were sold in China.
 Of course the Chinese government did not sit idly by It cut off few heads and sent many persons out of the country for the country's good; but the smoking of opium went on. Whats the threat of death to a man who wants to do something? Around the world in England at that very mo- ment men were stealing five-shilling purses and being hanged for it. And the Chinese continued to smoke their opium. In 1880 the East India Com pany sold to them and they smoked 2,500,000 pounds. The East India Company was becoming rich and the British government took toll from it's trade.
 History records the fact hat in the year 1887 the Chinese emperor screwed up his courage and talked fight The sale of opium to his subjects must stop. The supply ships that were lying outside his harbors must clear out If they didn't there would be trouble. So he said in his proclamation.
 The British East India Company treated him as if he were chattering child. Not a ship moved Not a Chinaman came after opium who did not get it. Everything went on as be- fore.
 But the emperor was no chattering child. He was a raging. roaring old man. He felt precisely as the Boston CTS did when the tea-laden British ships came in after their tax And he did precisely what the citizens of Boston did-boarded the ships, by proxy of course, and dumped the opium into the ocean-3,0 ,00O, 900 pounds of it.
 Of course this act was construed by the British to constitute a cause for war, and hostilities were opened as soon as the aggrieved persons could get their guns into action. This was in 1S40. The Chinese, even in that day, were as poor fighters as they are now. In a little while British fleet had captured Chusan. The next year the Rogue forts fell and then Canton, Annoy, Shanghai, Chapoo, and a lot of other places gave up the ghost. By 1S42 the Chinese emperor was very glad to buy peace by ceding Hong kong, paying an indemnity of 21,000, 900, and throwing open four ports to foreign trade. He even humiliated himself by degrading Commissioner Lin who had carried ut the emperor 8 orders. Nor did he get even the thanks of his own subjects for his efforts in their behalf The whole empire was torn with rebellion. Rebel armies robbed, murdered and plundered al most as they pleased. If they had had an intelligent leader who could have