How much better were it for the Government to attempt to regulate the trade of this article instead of doing all in their power to suppress it, in which they can never be successful, so long as Chinamen and their descendants remain with the tastes that now belong to them. Can there be any prohibition against the introduction of opium more strong than that of the Chinese Government? and are there any more useless, or any laws more openly evaded? It is impossible to extirpate the taste, but it would be easy to regulate and in some degree control it; and these are the proper and legitimate aims of a Government. Under proper management and increased facilities for the planter to rear opium, the Philippines, merely from their situation, would rule the China market for the drug, which would employ multitudes of people in its growth and manufacture, and be a source of immense wealth to the country. Some one will object that it is an immoral trade, which caters to the worst passions of the nature of the Chinese. Let it be proved so; let us see something more than mere prejudice; let it be shown to be worse than the conduct of the farmer, at home, who raises and sells barley to make whiskey; or of the distiller, who makes it; or of the West Indian, who produces rum from his estate, as both of these stimulants increase the evil passions in men while swayed by them, to a much greater extent than opium. Smoking tobacco does no good to the person who practises it; it is a vice, although those addicted to it may call it one of the lesser sins. But would it be just or wise to prohibit the growth of tobacco, because smoking it may not be a virtue? To attempt stopping the use of opium is no wiser, and just as futile, in China, as King Jamie's foolish decrees against tobacco proved to be in Britain. Wheat is grown in the provinces of Ylocos, Tayabas, and the Laguna, but is seldom or never more than enough to supply the wants of the European population, none of it being exported; and the import of foreign wheat is prohibited, although it is frequently conceded to the bakers, on their memorialising the Governor, and showing that the prices at the time of their doing so are excessively high. Although sulphur can scarcely be ranked in the same category with the preceding articles of commerce, I set it down here, as a considerable quantity is annually shipped to China. It is brought from the vicinity of the volcanoes in Bisayas: the best is said to come from Leyte, which is worth about one and a quarter dollar per pecul. Residents at Manilla usually immerse a large block, weighing about two peculs, in the wells from which their drinking water is taken, just as the rainy season commences, and it is found to have a most salutary effect upon the water impregnated with it, causing less liability to those who drink it, to suffer dysentery from its use.