[69] Don Sinibaldo (p. 11). To prohibit opium, he says, because some people kill themselves with it, is as bad as if we prohibited razors because some people cut their throats with them. He also says that he considers the number of deaths by opium in China to be less in proportion than the number of deaths self-inflicted by firearms in France--_i.e._ that they do not number 3,500 in all. [70] Swinhoe's _Campaign of 1860_, p. 248. [71] Dr. Ayres, _Friend of China_, 1878, p. 217. [72] Comm. on E. I. Finance, Q. 5980. Mr. Winchester says: "I should say the balance was in favour of the relief given by the stimulant over the actual misery created by its abuse." Also Dr. Moore, p. 86. [73] Dr. Ayres, _Friend of China_, 1878, p. 217. [74] Dr. Myers, _Health of Takow_, p. 8. A recent article in the Times, from a Singapore correspondent, fully bears this out. He says that all allow the Chinese of the Straits Settlements to be the _finest specimens of their race_, and yet these very Chinese, a million in number, smoke 12,000 chests of opium a year; and the deaths from opium registered in the annual medical report were last year _five_. [75] Mr. Brereton (p. 8) says: "I have known numbers, certainly not less than 500 in all, who have smoked opium from their earliest days, young men, middle-aged, and men of advanced years, some of them probably excessive smokers; but I have never observed any symptoms of decay in one of them." Again: "I have tried to find the victims of the dreadful drug, but have never succeeded." [76] From a letter to the _London and China Telegraph_, June 19, 1882. [77] The estimate of one million given in a preceding note includes the Chinese population of the neighbouring islands and of Cochin China. [78] Dr. Myers: "It is surprising how few among the hard-working class indulge to excess; and case after case will be met with, even in the lowest ranks of life, of men who have smoked regularly from ten to twenty or thirty years, and show little or no signs of mental or physical deterioration." [79] Dr. Myers, _Health of Takow_, p. 10. [80] Correspondent to _North China Herald_. See Brereton, p. 135. [81] Of this the Indian Government is only responsible for 40,000 chests. The rest is Malwa opium. [82] It may be said that those who smoke _Indian_ opium are the richer classes, and therefore more prone to excess; but, on the other hand, the native drug is more deleterious. [83] _Health of Takow_, p. 6. [84] _Ibid._, p. 5. [85] Mr. Cooper's coolies carried him twenty miles a day for months. [86] Coleridge. [87] Aug. 19, 1882. [88] "Most remarkable for industry and usefulness."--Sir F. Halliday. [89] See Johnston's _Chemistry of Common Life_. [90] "Stimulants are weak narcotics: narcotics are strong stimulants."--_Modern Thought_, Aug. 1882. [91] Sir George Birdwood calls this the greatest temperance triumph of any age or nation.