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It seems, at first, a trivial thing; indeed, the man who is well fed and properly housed and clothed seems able to keep it up for a considerable time without noticeable ill results.
The great difficulty in China is, of course, this: that very few opium smokers are well fed and properly housed and clothed.
All the smokers can be roughly divided into two classes, those who smoke in order to relieve pain or misery, and those unfartunate victims who smoke to relieve the acute physical distress brought on by the opium itself. Probably the majority of the victims take it up as a temporary relief; many begin in early childhood—the mother will give the baby a whiff to stop its crying.
It is a social vice only among the upper classes.
The most notable outward effect of this indulgence is the resulting physical weakness and lassitude.
The opium smoker cannot work hard: he finds it difficult to apply his mind to a problem or his body to a task. As the habit becomes firmly fastened on him, there is a perceptible weakening of his moral fiber; he shows himself unequal to emergencies which make any sudden demand upon him. If opium is denied him, he will lie and steal in order to obtain it.
Opium smoking is a costly vice.
A pipeful of a moderately good native product casts more than a laborer can earn in a day: consequently the poorer classes smoke an unspeakable compound based on pipe scrapings and charcoal, Along the highroads the coolies even scrape the grime from the pack-saddles to mix with this dross.
The clerk earning from twenty-five to fifty Mexican dollars a month will frequently spend from ten to twenty dollars a month for opium.
The typical confirmed smoker is a man who spends a considerable part of the night in smoking himself to sleep, and all next morning in sleeping off the effects. If he is able to work at all it is only during the afternoon, and even at that it will not be many days until the official or merchant will be incompetent to conduct his affairs.
Thousands of prominent men are ruined every year.
Everywhere along the highroad and in the cities and villages of Shansi you see the opium face. The opium smoker, like the opium eater, rapidly loses flesh when the habit has fixed itself on him.
