Chinese opium smokers in a saloon experiencing various effects of the drug. Engraving by G. Paterson, 1843, after T. Allom.

"It will probably be a melancholy satisfaction to Christian England to be assured, by competent and credible authorities, that the accompanying illustration does not exaggerate the deplorable spectacle exhibited by the interior of a smoking-house, into which the initiated alone are admitted. Lord Jocelyn, who accompanied a late mission to China, gives the following painful description of a smoking-house at Sincapore. 'One of the objects at this place that I had the curiosity to visit, was the opium-smoker in his heaven; and certainly it is a most fearful sight, although, perhaps, not so degrading to the eye as the drunkard from spirits, lowered to the level of the brute and wallowing in his filth. The idiot-smile and death-like stupor of the opium debauchee has something far more awful to the gaze than the bestiality of the latter. Pity, if possible, takes the place of other feelings, as we watch the faded cheek and haggard look of the being abandoned to the power of the drug: whilst disgust is uppermost at the sight of the human creature levelled to the beast by intoxication. One of the streets in the centre of the town is wholly devoted to shops for the sale of this poison: and here in the evening may be seen, after the labours ot the day are over, crowds of Chinese, who seek these places to satisfy their depraved appetites. The rooms where they sit and smoke are surrounded by wooden couches, with places for the head to rest upon, and generally a side-room is devoted to gambling. The pipe is a reed of about an inch in diameter, and the aperture in the bowl for the admission of the opium is not larger than a pin's head The drug is prepared with some kind of incense, and a very small portion is sufficient to charge it, one or two whiffs being the utmost that can be inhaled from a single pipe; and the smoke is taken into the lungs, as from the hookah in India. On a beginner, one or two pipes will have an effect, but an old stager will continue smoking for hours. At the head of each couch is placed a small lamp, as fire must be applied to the drug during the process of inhaling; and from the difficulty of filling and properly lighting the pipe, there is generally a person who waits upon the smoker to perform the office. A few days of this fearful luxury, when taken to excess, will impart a pallid and haggard look to the features; and a few months, or even weeks, will change the strong and healthy man into little better than an idiot-skeleton. The pain they suffer when deprived of the drug, after long habit, no language can explain; and it is only to a certain degree under its influence, that their faculties are alive. In the hours devoted to their ruin, these infatuated people may be seen at nine o'clock in the evening in all the different stages. Some entering half-distracted, to feed the craving appetite they had been obliged to subdue during the day; others laughing and talking under the effects of a pipe; while the couches around are filled with their different occupants, who lie languid, with an idiot-smile upon their countenances, too completely under the influence of the drug, to regard passing events, and fast merging to the wished-for consummation. The last scene in this tragic play is generally a room in the rear of the building, a species of morgue or dead-house, where lie sheltered those who have passed into the state of bliss the opium-smoker madly seeks — an emblem of the long sleep to which he is blindly hurrying.' It may be asked, can no remedies be discovered for a vice so deplorable, a disease so corroding to the heart of the nation? Yes, let the Chinese abolish despotism, enlarge the liberty of the people — remove prohibitory duties, cultivate foreign commerce — establish philanthropic institutions — and receive the Gospel ; then will the distinction between virtue and vice, truth and falsehood, honour and shame, be understood, and the duties of the public censor become less onerous and more valuable."—Allom and Wright, loc. cit.