territory to that port. In Bengal presidency
a system of sale by auction is adopted. When
the Bengal opium has been collected and
brought to the Company's depots in the cities
of Benares and Patna, when it has been purified
and packed in the chests, it is sent to
Calcutta, where brokers, acting for the
Company, dispose of the opium by auction to the
highest bidders. The purchasers are English,
American, and other merchants, who buy to
sell again at any other ports they please; it
being a well understood fact, however, that
China is the great market to which they
look.

The commercial history of a pound of
Indian opium, then, is this: The Company
pay about ninepence for the juice to the ryot
cultivator; they incur a further expenditure
of three shillings or so, by the time the opium
has left their hands. They receive, on an
average, say twelve shillings from the
merchant who buys at the Calcutta sale, and
they pocket the difference between four
shillings and twelve. These sums must be taken
simply as a means of showing how the price
rises, and not the actual prices for any one
year. The Company have sold at seven
shillings per pound, they have sold at a
guinea per pound, according to the general
state of affairs in India or in China, and their
profits have been proportionally affected. As
to the further increase of price in China, the
next chapter will afford some information.

At Bombay, the exports of opium to China
are greater than all the other exports to all
countries; but, at Calcutta, the general
trade being vastly in excess of that at the
sister presidency, the opium exports do not
appear to be relatively so large, although the
actual quantity of Benares and Patna opium,
sold at Calcutta, is about twice that of
Malwa opium sold at Bombay. The sales at
Calcutta have increased from two to twelve
in the year, and are managed by brokers
employed by the Company. The Company have
nothing further to do with the matter after
these sales;  the merchants or buyers take
the drug whithersoever they will—mostly to
China, in low-hulled, swift-sailing vessels.
Ninety years ago, India sent two hundred
chests of opium annually to China; now, she
sends fifty or sixty thousand; at that time, the
opium paid only cultivators' and merchants'
profits; at present, it yields in addition a
revenue of no less than five millions sterling
to the East India Company. And yet it is
calculated that all the opium fields of India
combined, do not exceed an area of a
hundred thousand acres, or a square of land
measuring twelve or thirteen miles on each
side. In the culture of these fields, the
Company not only pay the ryot for the opium
produced, but advance him money to assist in
the culture; and this has led some of the
well-wishers of India to assert that, if the
Company would foster the growth of cotton
in the same way—especially at a time when
the dependence of Britain on the United
States for a supply of that important material
is beginning to excite much uneasiness
—it would be more to the advantage both
of India and of England.

As far back as a quarter of a century ago,
when the affairs of the East India Company
were investigated by parliament, and when
the revenue derived from opium was far
smaller than it has since become, the
committee reported: "In the present state of the
revenue of India, it does not appear advisable
to abandon so important a source of revenue;
a duty on opium being a tax which falls
principally upon the foreign consumers, and
which appears, upon the whole, less liable to
objection than any other that could be
substituted." This line of argument has been
used ever since; the servants of the
Company, in evidence before commissions and
committees, constantly assert that the opium
revenue must not be touched, unless the
moralists can point out some substitute; they
say, if you touch this revenue, you will paralise
any exertions we may make to improve
the natives and industry of India. Money
we must have—if not from opium, where else?
The Marquis of Dalhousie, in the remarkable
Minute giving the results of his eight
years' government of India, shows that the
opium revenue had increased from less than
three millions sterling, in eighteen hundred
and forty-eight, to more than five millions in
eighteen hundred and fifty-six; that it now
forms one-sixth of the entire revenue of our
vast Indian empire; and he ventures upon
no suggestions for the future abandonment or
diminution of this source of wealth.

The next chapter will take up from India
to China; from the opium-growers to the
opium-consumers; from those who obtain a
revenue through smoke, to those who puff
the smoke that yields the revenue.

A DEAD PAST.

Spare her at least; look, you have taken from me
The Present and I murmur not nor moan;
The Future, too, with all her glorious promise,
But do not leave me utterly alone.

Spare me the Past—for, see, she cannot harm you,
She lies so white and cold, wrapped in her shroud,
All, all my own! and trust me I will hide her
Within my soul, nor speak to her aloud.

I folded her soft hands upon her bosom
And strewed my flowers upon her—they still live—
Sometimes I like to kiss her closed white eyelids,
And think of all the joy she used to give.

Cruel indeed it were to take her from me:
She sleeps, she will not wake—no fear—again.
And so I laid her, such a gentle burthen,
Quietly on my heart to still its pain.

I do not think the rosy smiling Present,
Or the vague Future, spite of all her charms,
Could ever rival her. You know you laid her,
Long years ago, then living, in my arms.