SECRET OPIUM SMOKING IN CHINA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9709, 3 February 1910, Page 7

SECRET OPIUM SMOKING IN CHINA.

Notwithstanding the general belief that China is shaking off the opium habit the reform as applied to most provinces may be stated to be a "paper' one only, says the Shanghai correspondent of the "Standard." The Chinese are very anxious to convey the impression to foreign minds that the opium evil is being eradicated, but we have only to look beneatft the surface to find that opium can always be obtained by those who require it, and secret smoking promises to be as big an evil as secret drinking in some parte of the world. This smoking is not, as a rule, carried on secretly, the only difference being that in some provinces, whereas men went to dens to smoke, they have now to confine their indulgence in the habit to their own homes or those ot their friends. ! | The only change in China to-day from the condition that appertained a few years ago is that opium is officially under a ban The Customs returns show that, in spiet of edicts and regulations, the native drug is taking the place of the imported article, and that the deficiency in the supply of the latter is fully made up by the former, A native official recently related to a missionary how some men passed through several towns in Yunnan on the way to the capital of the province with three coffins. In the first was a corpse; the other two were packed with opium. The men were suspected a one place, and the first coffin was opened, but the carriers made so much trouble over the opening of the coffin that the second and third coffins were allowed to pass through unmolested.