Opium-smoking in America and China : a study of its prevalence, and effects, immediate and remote, on the individual and the nation / by H.H. Kane.

  • Kane, H. H. (Harry Hubbell), 1854-
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Opium-smoking in America and China : a study of its prevalence, and effects, immediate and remote, on the individual and the nation / by H.H. Kane. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The little room on the right was boarded about half way up the front, from which point small wooden bars ran to the ceiling, thus separating it from the small anteroom. Behind the bars stood a pleasant-faced Chinaman who, with scales in hand, was weighing out some opium. ' Inside, by the dim light, could be seen a single wooden bunk covered with matting, upon which a Chinaman was engaged in smoking opium. Going along a narrow passage that ran between the two rooms we came upon a small pillared altar before which a light and some sweet smelling pastils were burning. Swerving to the right we passed through a low doorway and found ourselves in the smoking-room. In a few moments, after our eyes had become ac- customed to the semi-gloom, we found ourselves in a small low-ceilinged room made of rough boards, about the three sides of which ran low wooden bunks some four feet in width. In the back part of the room there were two tiers of bunks. Close to the ceiling was a narrow grated window, the only means of ventilation. Upon these bunks were stretched transversely, in parties of two or three, some twelve men and women—Americans—engaged in cooking and smoking opium. The whole place was rank with the odor of the drug. The recumbent forms, the quiet faces half lit by the little opium lamps, the subdued conversation,