Here we find a woman; she is a slattern if ever there was one. Clean-limbed, in the sense that she has no sores on visible parts of her body, she is nevertheless almost as certain a disseminator of disease and misery as the foul needle. She wakes as we watch her, and in a drowsy way, smiles; probably in a way she means to be fascinating, but we are not under the effects of the delusive narcotic, so cannot be expected to know! Suddenly a look of intelligence comes into her eyes, and realising who we are, she gets up, and stumbles towards the door, and out on to the street—on her way to _another_ den in all probability! [Illustration: AN INDIAN MORPHINIST] Here is another. An old, or rather, an old-looking man, shrivelled and feeble. He is just awaking from his stupor. We ask him to get up, but he is unable to do more than humbly indicate the reason for his inability to do so. A glance, as the sheet which covers him is withdrawn from his body, sends a thrill of horror through us, and we turn away sickened at the sight; and the man—is he a man?—draws his cloth over his tattered body, and tries to woo sleep again. This last sight is enough to send us headlong into the fresh air and sunlight. If these are the results of morphia, then God have mercy upon its votaries, for they stand sorely in need of it! Morphia is imported into the country in large quantities by smugglers, the drug being brought from the British Isles, Japan, and the Continent by members of the crews of steamers plying from these countries. As many as 500 ounces of morphia have been seized in one consignment, and, as it is generally admitted by those who are in position to know that for every ounce seized, a pound passes through undetected, it only requires a simple calculation to arrive at the approximate total quantity which is hawked about unrestricted. Morphia, being more portable and concentrated, is more easily concealed than opium, which is comparatively bulky. Of the aggregate seizures in any one year, seventy-five per cent. is made up of numerous small seizures. To seize four or five ounces of the drug in one lot is rather the exception than the rule; and seizure in larger quantities is a comparatively rare event. But it is comforting, in a way, to know that morphia, by the time it reaches the consumer, is very often freely adulterated, starch being the adulterant used; and when it is considered that morphia sold illicitly fetches from five to six times its price when sold licitly, the increase in its bulk which results after adulteration represents a handsome additional profit to the vendor. The big smuggler imports the drug; his lesser brother buys some from him and adulterates it; the den-owner buys the mixture from the lesser light and he in turn adds a little more starch to it; and finally “the man in the cubicle” retails the mixture to the consumer.