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.

    48/180 (page 28)
    hard, and are in condition to be packed in cases (40 cakes in each) for the Chinese market, which consumes the great bulk of the manu- facture. The first venture of the East India Company to carry opium to China was in 1773, the Portugese having opened the trade in 1767. In a short time the business spread with tremendous rapidity, flood- ing China with opium, and enriching the merchants engaged in the speculation. In 1820 the Chinese government, recognizing the terrible ascendancy the vice of opium-smoking was obtaining over its sub- jects, and feeling the great drain in money that was leaving the country annually to pay for the drug, an edict was issued by the emperor' against the traffic in any form, and forbidding any vessel having opium on board to enter port. This was almost wholly disregarded both by the native merchants and by the English. Smuggling by means of bribing the too willing officials, was car- ried on openly. Finally, matters came to such a pass that the Eng- lish merchants and residents were imprisoned and held until all opium, on land and in ships, was sur- rendered to the authorities; 20,283 chests, valued at eleven million dollars, were seized and destroyed. It being found impossible to settle matters ami- cably, the British government, claiming that their ' Shuck: Portfolio Chinensis, Macao, China, 1840.