I once met a missionary, and in the course of conversation, we happened upon the opium evil. He was eloquent, his views on the subject were decided. In fact he was so decided in his views that I found it impossible to convince him that what he described as the effects of opium were really those symptomatic of an overdose of _bhang_. And yet, I have little doubt that this person must have written home lurid accounts of the opium evil, and the ruin and havoc it was causing. What reformers ought to do is to cease memorializing Government to totally prohibit the traffic, and try to help them more by taking an active part in checking immoderation. Moderate indulgence in opium is less harmful in every way than the habit of passing public resolutions and submitting memorials. By the foregoing, I do not wish it to be surmised that I hold a brief for the opium habit, or that I consider it a desirable thing. To be a slave in any degree to anything is bad; the tobacco habit is bad; the over-eating habit is bad. But opium comes in for too much of the attention of religious propagandists, and the Government is taxed with the charge of reaping revenue at the expense of the bodies and souls of the people. This is a view it is the duty of anyone who knows the subject intimately to correct. The Royal Commission on Opium in India, which sat under the chairmanship of Lord Brassey, some thirty years ago, collected a mass of evidence for and against opium which is unrivalled in its extent and value. The conclusion come to by a majority of the Commissioners was that opium in moderation did no great harm; and to ensure moderation, they recommended a policy of close control. In deference to popular opinion, and the religious scruples of the bulk of Indians, they thought it desirable that the opium habit should eventually be suppressed, and trusted that close control would, by attrition, bring about this result. CHAPTER X. MORPHIA. Morphia, which is the active principle of opium, is interesting in its being the first “alkaloid” to be discovered. Its basic nature was first noticed by Serturner in 1816. As a medicine, principally as an anodyne, morphia is to pharmacy what chloroform is to surgery, and, as a “boon and blessing” to man in that character, it is second to none. But like all good things in this world, it has become the object of the grossest abuse at the hand of man; and its devotees, in an euphonic sense, number hundreds of thousands.