Untitled

Clutha Leader, Volume IV, Issue 199, 3 May 1878, Page 7

Opium -eating is the live issue in the Shenandoah valley of Virginia. A local paper has been investigating,, and reports that the habit is frightfully prevalent, insomuch -that the drug 1 stores of Staunton, • a place of 10,000 inhabitants, retail about 100 pounds a week, many of their best "customers beino:youn£ ladies of the " first families,' while storekeepers in the country find their trade in the drug so increased, of late that they are now purchasing of 1 wholesale houses at the North. The excitement aroused by the exposure has been fanned by the rather tragic death of a HarHsonburg woman, who had sent two horses to be soldi in order to raise money to buy morphine, and was so overcome when she saw the man returning 1 without-having 1 made the trade, that she, fell to the -floor and died in a few hours. A public. meeting 1 was. he)ci: at Staunton to organise public,,s.entiment against the vice, and a, petition to the Legislature Is beiri^ ( numerously? ;si<rned .asking-for a'Veavy.'tax oq 'opium :'•' The introduction* *-: of: the '.- bell-pun.blij, which has., raisHd- the;price;'o"E.At~di : inlcs",['; is held jto^be^p';irtly tlie spread of the evil.— Springfield^iiejittbli-*, can./ : --'' l n■■ . -■.' ".-'■""--■-• : v<"r i i;" Hr;'; r ;'y !l "; v ~ ,-- . !