[92] It has only recently been discovered that the aborigines of Australia also have a narcotic of their own, which has qualities akin to opium and tobacco. [93] Capt. Hall's _Nemesis_. [94] _Opium Question Solved_, p. 15. _Cf._ Sir Charles Trevelyan, Comm. on E. I. Finance, Qu. 1532-40. [95] And in this connection it might occur to us that if, in the wake of our civilization, instead of the "blue ruin" which we gave him, we had brought to the Red Indian the marvellous gift of opium, "that noble race and brave" would not have "passed away," but be still surviving to smoke the calumet of peace with the divine opium in the bowl. [96] Parliamentary Papers 1842-56, No. 26. [97] Letter to Sir W. Parker, 1843. He adds that "personally he had not been able to discover a _single_ instance of its decidedly bad effects." [98] _China and the Chinese._ [99] "No one," says Mr. Gardner, "is maddened by smoking opium to crimes of violence, nor does the habit of smoking increase the criminal returns or swell the number of prison inmates." [100] Dr. Pereira, _Materia Medica_. Dr. Andrew Clarke estimated on one occasion that seven-tenths of the patients in St. Bartholomew's Hospital owed their ill-health to alcohol. [101] Dr. Tanner's _Practice of Medicine_. Dr. Moore. For an interesting comparison between opium and alcohol, we may refer our readers to De Quincey's _Confessions of an Opium Eater_. [102] Twenty-five drops of laudanum = 1 grain of opium [therefore] 8,000 drops = 320 grains; but Dr. Myers tells us that 2 grains of opium swallowed = 1 mace (58 grains) smoked, so that De Quincey took what was equivalent to 160 _mace_ smoked. [103] Theodore Gautier maintains that "the love of the ideal is so innate in man that he attempts, as far as he can, to relax the ties which bind body to soul; and as the means of being in an ecstatic state are not in the power of all, one drinks for gaiety, another smokes for forgetfulness, a third devours momentary madness." [104] It is indeed said of Ennius that he sought inspiration in the flowing bowl; that he never "Nisi potus ad arma Exsiluit dicenda."--_Hor._ But then, as Praed says, "poets tell confounded lies," and this may be one of them. Coleridge, in later times, is said to have sought the same inspiration from opium; and poems like "Kubla Khan" testify that he found it. [105] Enough, as Mr. Brereton says, to form a devil's punchbowl huge enough for all the population of the British Isles to swim in at the same time. [106] Dr. Norman Kerr in a paper read at the Social Science Congress. [107] "Any serious attempt to check the evil must originate with the people themselves," said the Chinese Commissioners to Sir Thomas Wade. [108] To chastise the insolent barbarian, as Lord Palmerston put it to his electors at Tiverton.