The Chinese government never ceased its opposition to the smuggling of opium from Hong Kong, although many of its venal officials shared in the profits of the traffic. For two decades, from the mid-1860s to the mid-1880s, China attempted to enforce a blockade against smuggled salt and opium, but opium continued to represent almost half its total imports. A joint Sino-British commission agreed to place some limitation on the trade in 1886, but the British zeal for enforcement was diluted by the desire for continuing profits. Even after controls were repeatedly tightened in the early 1900s, the returns held steady; in 1906, the opium trade was valued at 5 million pounds and yielded $2 million in colony revenue. Unfavorable world opinion gradually narrowed the trade, but the nonmedical sale and use of the drug was not entirely banned until World War II. In the last several decades, the Hong Kong Police Department has outgrown its disreputable origins and has become an efficient law-enforcement organization. Nevertheless, the image of the colony that persists in the imagination of many Westerners who have never been there is a cesspool of iniquity such as the one that horrified the Rev. Smith. Just how wicked and criminal is today’s Hong Kong? A layman’s comparison of the crime rates of the United States and Hong Kong for the year 1960, as published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Hong Kong Police Department respectively, gives an objective picture of their relative lawlessness. Both sets of figures are for predominantly urban areas, covering ten of the most comparable categories of crime. The figures give the actual number of crimes per one million population. Because of inherent differences in the manner of classifying and reporting crimes, a margin of error of ten percent should be allowed in their interpretation. 1960—CRIME RATES PER 1 MILLION POPULATION CRIME CATEGORY UNITED STATES HONG KONG Murder 55 8 Rape 74 50 Serious Assault 645 178 Burglary 1,358 157 Larceny 2,785 2,562 Forgery 234 60 Prostitution 319 527 Narcotics 289 4,677 Drunkenness 16,375 257 Robbery 361 30 Such statistics are always subject to many different interpretations, which will not be made here. But they confirm one impression shared by virtually everyone who has spent many nights (either at home or on the streets) in both New York City and Hong Kong: You’re a lot safer in Hong Kong.