"The consumption of opium in the cities has fallen off thirty per cent.; in the towns fifty per cent.; while in the rural districts in the eastern and middle provinces it is reduced to a minimum. It is well for Shanghai to be allied with Soochow, Hangchow, and Nanking, and not to permit itself to be a refuge for bad men. "The Chinese merchants in the International Settlement have sent in earnest appeals to the Council on this question. As friends of China, might not the ratepayers give their appeals a courteous consideration? "The question of opium at the Annual Meeting commands world-wide attention and Saturday's papers throughout Christendom will bear record of and comment upon the action. "To close the dens is right. Shanghai cannot afford to be the black spot on Kiangsu's map. _Opium delendum est._ "In behalf of the Anti-Opium League, "HAMPDEN C. DUBOSE, _President_." The appeals from Great Britain, America, China, and Japan, like the petitions of merchants, missionaries, and officials, were without effect. The "vested interests" carried the day, and a resolution, ordering the closing of the dens on or before the end of December, 1909, was lost by a vote of 128 to 189, the council, as usual, influencing and controlling the votes and carrying the original motion--the only concession it would grant to this gigantic movement. Another surprise came to the cynical foreigner, when, on April 18th, the whole of the opium licensees participated in a public drawing in the town hall, to decide by lottery which establishments should be shut down on the 1st of July, numbering one-fourth of the total number, this method being adopted by the council to avoid any suspicion of partiality in the selection. The keepers of the dens cheerfully acquiesced in the proposal, the sporting chance no doubt appealing to the gambling spirit for which they are noted, and in the town hall this remarkable drawing was held without any sign of disfavour or rowdyism. The keepers of the Shanghai opium shops are no doubt thoroughly convinced that the feeling of the native community is entirely against the retention of these places and are ready to bow to the inevitable. None of the trouble or rioting feared by the Council, materialized, and it is certain that the entire list of licenses might have been immediately revoked without disturbance of any kind--and without protest. Three hundred and fifty-nine licenses thus cease with the end of June, and it is doubtful, with the present spirit manifest in the Chinese, that such another drawing will be necessary at all. The funeral pyre of opium-pipes, we trust, marks the end, or the immediate beginning of the end, of Shanghai's reproach, and it is distinctly to the credit of the 500,000 Chinese living within the jurisdiction of this foreign community, that they themselves are taking the lead in wiping out this stain on the "Model Settlement"--doing what