“We decree, therefore, that within a limit of ten years this harmful muck be fully and entirely wiped away.  We further command the Council of State to consider means for the strict prohibition both of opium-smoking and of poppy-growing.”

Among the regulations drawn up by the Council of State are these: 

That all smokers of opium be required to report themselves and to take out licenses.

Smokers holding office are divided into two classes.  Those of the junior class are to cleanse themselves in six months.  For the seniors no limit of time is fixed.  Both classes while under medical treatment are to pay for approved deputies, by whom their duties shall be discharged.

All opium dens are to be closed after six months.  These are places where smokers dream away the night in company with the idle and the vicious.

No opium lamps or pipes are to be made or sold after six months.  Shops for the sale of the drug are not to be closed until the tenth year.

The Government provides medicines for the cure of the habit.

The formation of anti-opium societies is encouraged; but the members are cautioned not to discuss political questions.

The question no doubt arises in the mind of the reader, Will China succeed in freeing herself from bondage to this hateful vice?  It is easy for an autocrat to issue a decree, but not easy to secure obedience.  It [Page 306] is encouraging to know that this decisive action is favoured by all the viceroys—­Yuan, the youngest and most powerful, has already taken steps to put the new law in force in the metropolitan province.  A flutter of excitement has also shown itself in the ranks of Indian traders—­Parsees, Jews, and Mohammedans—­who have presented a claim for damages to their respectable traffic.

On the whole we are inclined to believe in the good faith of the Chinese Government in adopting this measure, and to augur well for its success.  Next after the change of basis in education, this brave effort to suppress a national vice ranks as the most brilliant in a long series of reformatory movements.

    W. A. P. M.
  PEKING, January, 1907.

[Page 307] INDEX

[Page 309] INDEX

Adams, John Quincy, on the Opium War, 153
Albazin, Cossack garrison captured at, 57
Alphabet, a new, invented by Wang Chao, 217
Amherst, Lord, declines to kneel to Emperor, 168
Amoy, seaport in Fukien province, 14
  its grass cloth and peculiar sort of black tea, 15
Anhwei, province of, home of Li Hung Chang, 49
Anti-foot-binding Society, supported by Dowager Empress in an edict, 217
Anti-foreign Agitation, 244-266
  American influence in the Far East and, 245-251
“Appeal from the Lion’s Den,” 176
Army, the Chinese, 200-202
Arrow War, the, 162-169
  allied troops at Peking, 168
  Canton occupied by British troops, 164
  China abandons her long seclusion, 169
  crew of the Arrow executed without trial, 163
  negotiations of the four powers with China, 165
  seizure of the lorcha Arrow, 162