Besides in India opium is eaten in Turkey, where its virtues are so much appreciated that the legend stamped on the opium lozenges is "Mash-Allah," the "Gift of God"; and the habit is prevalent in Persia also. Among the Malays and Siamese, and in Java and Sumatra and the neighbouring islands, it is mostly smoked; and, of course, the Chinese carry the habit with them wherever they go. Even America has caught the infection, and the rapid progress of the habit, especially among the lower orders, called forth vigorous coercive measures. It may be that these will have the desired effect; but that will only be because the Americans have no natural craving for the drug, and prefer their national taste for gin and whiskey and rum. Some of the more violent opio-phobists, pointing to the spread of this "horrid and infectious vice" among the Americans, hint in almost triumphant tones that the secret use of opium in England is already considerable, and still increasing, as though it were a Nemesis, too long delayed, for her crimes.[54] If we may believe De Quincey,[55] opium-eating was by no means an uncommon thing among the upper classes, even in his day; and Dickens, in his description of an opium-den in _Edwin Drood_, draws no doubt upon his stores of personal knowledge acquired in his youthful rambles among the streets of London. However, we cannot think there is any real danger of the English people deliberately taking to opium. Tobacco answers every purpose. But it is an undoubted fact that the mortality among children in large towns like Bradford and Manchester is due, in a great measure, to their being unwittingly dosed with opium, which enters largely into the composition of soothing syrups, cordials, and elixirs of all kinds.[56] It has been estimated that 300,000 lbs. of opium are imported annually into the United Kingdom, only a part of which can be used medicinally.[57]