Of course it does. The temptations are there in the shape of licensed shops, and the tempters in the shape of cunning Chinamen with an eye to the main chance; and so long as this is the case the Burmans will fall into the snare in ever-increasing numbers, for they are, like the Chinese, peculiarly liable to yield to the opium habit. The following is the testimony of Mr. Gregory, a gentleman who travelled through Burma to see for himself what the facts of the case were; and whatever may be said by the apologists for opium against alleged exaggerations, I think we may, at any rate, receive the testimony of a Christian man concerning what he saw himself. I quote what he says of Upper Burma. It fully proves how ineffectual the restrictive legislation is, and how powerful the temptation:— “At Pyinmana I saw Burmans buying opium, and at the same place the abbot of the Buddhist monasteries and one of the chief monks both told me that large numbers of the Burmans smoked. One of them bitterly complained that, whereas in the late king’s time he had power to stop these things, now he had none. At Yamethin, a prominent Burman official told me that there were numbers of purely Burmese villages in the neighbourhood supplied with opium from the Yamethin centre. I myself saw Burmans purchase opium there. At Kyaukse I saw Burmans served with opium. At all three of the opium centres at Mandalay I saw opium served to Burmans. One of the Chinese managers told me that the prohibition was only nominal, and he expected that it would be shortly removed ‘now that the Opium Act was getting into proper working order.’ At one of the Mandalay shops I saw three Burmans being taught to smoke by one of the Chinese assistants. A fourth was lying insensible. At Katha I saw a number of Burmans smoking opium in their houses in rooms quite open and visible, close by the court-house. At Bhamo, in the far north, I saw Burmans in crowds buying opium at the Government centre.”