There is something truly pathetic in the futile efforts made at various times by the Chinese Government to prevent the importation of opium into the country, and of the many viceroys of provinces to keep it out of the districts under their care. Here is a typical proclamation, issued by a certain Wang in the early days of the trade in the pernicious drug, which gives a very fair idea of what may be called native administrative literature: [Sidenote: THE EVIL E-JEN] "Wang, Imperial Viceroy, makes known the following: Advices have reached us to the effect that in the capital of Kwang-Tung and the neighbouring districts certain E-jen (barbarians from the West) are going about distributing to the people drugs in the form of pills made by fairies and evil genii. It is asserted that those who have absorbed these drugs sweat terribly all over their bodies to such an extent that they die. "I order all civil and military authorities to seek out the distributors of these diabolical medicines, to arrest them, and to bring them to the Court of Justice, where I will punish them severely. Although there are no proofs that in my own district the E-jen have ventured to sell the pills in question, I have been assured that cakes injurious to health have been distributed to the people. Analyzed with the aid of white of egg, these cakes yielded a residue of maggots.... I immediately ordered the arrest of the presumptuous merchants, but they had already fled beyond my jurisdiction. Fifty strokes from a bamboo-rod on the soles of their feet would have been their punishment. The fact is, I am very much afraid that these wretches have gone to other provinces, there to carry on their trade and do further mischief. "From another report I learn that every day certain E-jen throw deadly poisonous powders upon the roads; the rain does not destroy their potency for evil; when these powders are trodden under foot a thin, suffocating smoke rises up from them; there are some E-jen who carry this pernicious substance at the end of their fingers, and they have but to rub the head of any one they meet with it for that person to die, his body becoming covered with red spots. "Have a care, therefore, not to allow yourselves to be duped; I give you notice that at the gates of the town in which I reside I have posted policemen who examine all strangers."