'A more serious question, however, is the whisky. In going into that region I was amazed at the quantity of whisky used. I used to lodge in an inn and take my meals in an eating-house. There, twice a day, I had an opportunity of studying the drinking habits of the country. Almost every man who entered the eating-house first called for a whisky warmer. Supplied with that, he would go out and buy his whisky, coming back he would set it in the charcoal fire to warm, and then slowly drink it from the tiny wine cups common in China, inviting me to join him, and wondering at a man who could evidently afford it, not treating himself to two ounces of whisky, and wondering still more when he learned that I did not use tobacco. It would be an exaggeration, but not a great exaggeration, to say that every man who entered the eating-house began his meal by drinking whisky. In replying to the question put by my street audiences as to how they were to get good harvests, I would ask them, after finishing the tobacco question, "How about your whisky drinking?" Frequently they would anticipate me in this, and say, "If tobacco is wrong, how about whisky?" To convince them of the wrong of whisky was never difficult. To ask good harvests from heaven, then take grain given by heaven for food, and turn it into whisky, they did not need me to tell them this was wrong. And there in that district it is a very crying wrong. The quantity used is immense. Not only does it seem so to me, but natives from other parts of China are struck by the excessive use of it.