So far I have dealt exclusively with the man who smuggles in a large and extended way. He might be likened to the big importer of ordinary business. But, as in ordinary business, there are the retailers: those who take the goods to the consumer. These men operate up-country, in the sense that they work in the interior of the country. They may be agents of the big men, or they may be merely his customers; but except that their activities are confined, sometimes within the limits of a single district, they are otherwise similar to the big men who live in the cities. More often than not these men take an active and personal part in disseminating drugs, and consequently coming frequently into contact with the authorities, are more often brought to book for their misdemeanours. But they do not have much at stake, and rarely risk more than they can afford to lose if plans go wrong. Of course, there are these men in big cities also; as a matter of fact there are a host of them in every big city. To the square mile, there are many more consumers in a city than in the interior, and as the big smuggler cannot be troubled with retailing minute quantities of drugs, there is plenty to do for the lesser lights. Why is it that these importers are never brought to book, is a question that might reasonably be asked. The answer is simple. It is because they never by chance handle the goods; they never allow it into their houses. That a certain man is a smuggler is well known to the authorities. In fact, the suspect will cheerfully admit it; he will even go as far as telling them how it was that they failed to seize his last consignment of contraband, and defy them to seize the next one he expects to import! But he is perfectly acquainted with the law, and he knows that he cannot be touched unless the contraband is found in his actual possession, or, under such circumstances, within his house or its precincts, that possession of it cannot be ascribed to anyone but himself. The law prescribes a punishment for any person who, according to general repute, earns his living, wholly or in part, by opium or morphia trafficking. The smuggler evades the first part of this provision by keeping a mercantile business going; and relies upon his personality, and the dread he inspires in those who might otherwise seek to interfere with him, for avoiding the second. The instinctive reluctance of respectable people to make themselves party to judicial proceedings, and a very understandable fear of extremely unpleasant consequences to themselves, deters them from coming forward to give evidence against the smuggler, and this is a great handicap to this very excellent piece of legislation. All that the executive can hope to do is to seize as much of his contraband as possible, and so, gradually, deprive him of the means to carry on his trade.