The opium pipe is something so unlike any European conception of a pipe that it is difficult to describe it. It consists of a large bamboo tube or cylinder, with a bowl about midway between the extremities. The bowl is sometimes a very small brass plate, and sometimes an earthen cup-shaped contrivance, with the top closed or decked over, having only a tiny hole in the center. Into this little aperture the opium, in a semi-liquid state, after being well melted in a lamp flame, is thrust by means of a fine wire or needle. The drug is inserted in infinitesimal quantities. It is said that all the Chinese smoke opium, although all do not indulge to excess. Some seem to be able to use the drug without its gaining the mastery over them. There are more than a hundred opium dens in the Chinese quarters. These places are used for no other purpose whatever at any time. If it were the Chinese alone who frequented them, but little would be thought of it. Hundreds of white people, men, women and the youth of both sexes, have, however, become victims to this loathsome habit. So completely enslaved are they, that there is no escape from the tyrant. For all the poverty and untold misery this has brought upon these unfortunates, the Chinese are responsible. Vices cluster around Chinese social life, and nearly every house has its opium-smoking apartment, or rooms where the lottery or some kind of gambling is carried on. The residents of Chinatown have a government of their own, with its social and economic regulations, and its police and penal department, and they even inflict the death penalty, but in such a secret way that the outside world seldom hears of these acts of high authority. This social and commercial policy is controlled by six companies, to one of which every Chinaman in the country owes allegiance and is tributary. These companies severally represent different provinces in the Chinese Empire, and upon every arrival of a steamer from that country, and before the passengers are landed, the Chinese portion of them are visited by an official of the six companies, who ascertains what province each arriving coolie is from. That decides as to which company he will belong. Every Chinaman who comes is assured of his return to China, or, if he is so unfortunate as to die while in exile, that his bones will be sent home. This very important matter is one of the duties of the six companies. This comforting assurance, however, is not shared in by the women, whom, excepting those who are the wives of men of the better class, are brought over by a vile class of traders, and sold as chattels, or slaves, having no relation to the six companies.