THE CONFESSIONS OF AN OPIUM-EATER.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 62, 23 October 1900, Page 4

THE CONFESSIONS OF AN OPIUM-EATER.

At Liverpool on August 18fcb an inquest was held on the body of Terence Kelly, a shipping clerk, aged 52 years. A week previously deceased was found in oed in an unconscious Btate. He .lied two days afterwards. The coroner read a letter from deeased, which contained the following remai kable statements :—": — " I have no doubt that the taking of fifty to sixty grains of opium daily for fifteen years haß had everything to do with my present state. I have gone so low at last that I have to commit suicide. Some time since I tried half an ounce of landunum, then one ounce, then one-eighth of an ounce of opium itself, then a quarter of an ounce, and at last mree-eighths of an ounce of opium — but all without effect.; and this time I intend to take half an ounce, or, say, 220 grains, and that ought to finish me when six or eight grains are enough ts kill any ordinary Christian. I can understaud why Lord dive, with all his advantages of wealth and station, committed suicide after using the drug for years, and I may mention the operation of it. When an opium eater starts out on his career, each time he takes his daily dose the action of the heart increases in about half an hour, and that organ does double duty by sending the blood dancing through the veins at double-quick pace. The opium eater feels a better man under its influence, and this without the brain becoming cloudy, as with liquor. The sensation is glorious, and, in addition to the heart doing double duty, it is for all ths world as though some invisible hand was wrapping a warm blanket around that organ. No one can imagine the pleasure and strength — mentally and physically — that the drug gives; but then comes a time for punishment. During the fifteen years I took it— or, say, from thirty to forty years of age — I tfound the brain as well as the heart quickened in action. Now my brain will not receive any impression, and it is quite soft, and I have no mare thinking faculty than a boy of ten y«ars of age, and have forgotten almost all I ever knew, My poor heart sometimes beats wild, as though it were going to burst outright, and at other times atops, as thougfi it were going to beat no more.'*