confirmed, two drachms or more per day are
craved for. Dr. Oppenheim, in relation to
these Turkish opium-eaters (who take the
drug in the form of pills), says: "The effect
of the opium manifests itself one or two
hours after it has been taken, and lasts for
four or six hours, according to the dose
taken and the idiosyncracy of the subject. In
persons accustomed to take it, it produces a
high degree of animation, which the Theriaki
(opium-eaters) represent as the acme of
happiness. The habitual opium-eater is instantly
recognised by his appearance. A total
attenuation of body, a withered yellow countenance,
a lame gait, a bending of the spine,
frequently to such a degree as to assume a
circular form, and glossy deep-sunken eyes,
betray him at the first glance. The digestive
organs are in the highest degree disturbed:
the sufferer eats scarcely anything; his
mental and bodily powers are destroyed—he
is impotent. By degrees, as the habit
becomes more confirmed, his strength continues
decreasing, the craving for the stimulus
becomes even greater, and to produce the
desired effect the dose must constantly be
augmented. When the dose of two or three
drachms a day no longer produces the beatific
intoxication so eagerly sought, they mix the
opium with corrosive sublimate, increasing
the quantity till it reaches ten grains a day."
Most English readers are to some extent
familiar with the revelations made by De
Quincy and Coleridge, corroborating this
account of the terrible effects of
opium-eating. As to the Chinese habit of
opium-smoking, the next chapter will introduce us
to it.

Now this Oriental tendency to
opium-eating and smoking will furnish a clue to the
past and present proceedings of the East
India Company, in relation to the culture of
the poppy. Just ninety years ago, Messrs.
Watson and Wheeler, two civil servants of
the Company at Calcutta, suggested to the
Council that as India grew opium, a revenue
might possibly be derived therefrom. Until
that time, China had purchased no foreign
opium, except a little from India, a little
brought from Turkey by Portuguese
merchants; but it was now thought that India
might obtain a larger share in the trade.
The suggestion was so far adopted as to
ensure emoluments for several officers under
the Government; but in the course of a few
years the monopoly was taken out of the
hands of those officers, and the profit of the
trade assumed for the benefit of the
Company, through the medium of middlemen or
speculators. The system continued under
the direction of the Board of Revenue, but
towards the close of the century it was
transferred to the Board of Trade. About the
beginning of the present century the middleman,
or contractor system, was abolished.
Company's agents were directly appointed,
and the cultivation of the poppy was strictly
limited to certain defined districts in the
Bengal Presidency; the plan, thus
established, has been continued down to the
present time, with modification in its details,
but not in its principle.

Opium, then, is a rigorous monopoly of the
East India Company, so far as India is
concerned; and the monopoly is cherished and
fostered because the Chinese are found to be
ready purchasers. The Company are not the
growers of the poppy, but they control the
growers in an extraordinary way. Benares,
Patna, and Malwa are the three provinces
where the plant is grown. Leaving Malwa
for special mention presently, we proceed to
describe the mode in which the operations are
conducted in the other two provinces. The
cultivation of the poppy is prohibited, except
for the purpose of selling the juice to the
Company at a fixed price, at which it is
received. Any cultivator willing to engage
in this branch of husbandry is permitted so
to do, on the condition specified; but no one
is compelled, against his sense of his own
interests. The price for the juice—about
ninepence per pound on an average of years—
is found sufficient to stimulate production.
The Company will take any quantity, be the
produce above or below the average. The
poppy fields are measured every year, and
their boundaries fixed, in order to prevent
collision among those to whom they are
assigned. The contract between the Company
and the growers is managed through many
intermediate agents—including a collector,
who is a European; gomastaks, a superior
class of native agents; sudder mattús, a
respectable class of landowners; village
mattús, the principal inhabitants of the
villages; and the ryots or peasant cultivators.
According to the engagement entered into,
when the poppies are ripe, immediately before
the extraction of the juice, the gomastak and
his assistants make a circuit of the country
or district, and form by guess a probable
estimate of the produce of each field. He
then makes the ryot enter into an engagement
to deliver the quantity thus estimated,
and as much more as the field will yield, at
the price previously fixed. If the quantity
delivered be less than the estimate, and the
collector has reason to suppose the ryot has
kept back any, the former is empowered by
law to prosecute the ryot in the civil courts
for damages. If a ryot enters on the
cultivation of the poppy without having previously
made his agreement with the Company, his
property becomes immediately attached, until
he either destroys his poppies or makes the
requisite bargain. There would be tyranny
in the working of such a system, were it not
perfectly optional to the ryot to abandon the
culture of the poppy whenever it became
unprofitable or unpleasant to him; and indeed
the opponents of the system assert that it is
very difficult for the poor cultivators to get
out of the groove, whether they wish or no.