Dr. Madden tried, experimentally, the effects of opium—he commenced with a grain, which produced no perceptible effect, to this he afterwards added another grain. After two hours from commencing the operation, his spirits became excited. “My faculties,” he writes, “appeared enlarged, everything I looked at seemed increased in volume. I had no longer the same pleasure when I closed my eyes which I had when they were open; it appeared to me as if it was only external objects which were acted on by the imagination, and magnified into images of pleasure; in short, it was the faint exquisite music of a dream in a waking moment. I made my way home as fast as possible, dreading, at every step, that I should commit some extravagance. In walking, I was hardly sensible of my feet touching the ground—it seemed as if I slid along the street, impelled by some invisible agent, and that my blood was composed of some ethereal fluid, which rendered my body lighter than air. I got to bed the moment I reached home. The most extraordinary visions of delight filled my brain all night. In the morning I rose pale and dispirited, my head ached, my body was so debilitated, that I was obliged to remain on the sofa all day, dearly paying for my first essay at opium-eating.” Thus far, the opium-eater and the opium-smoker seem to agree in the principal results from the use of the drug. From the communications of Dr. Medhurst may be learnt many important facts relative to this habit in China. Day by day, and year by year, the practice of opium-smoking prevails more and more among this people, and by and by it will doubtless have a powerful effect upon the destinies of the country. It is said, that the late Emperor used the drug; it is certain that most of the government officers do, and their innumerable attendants are in the same category. Opium is used as a luxury by all classes, and to a great extent, indeed so great, that it cannot fail to exhibit its effects speedily upon the mass of the inhabitants. In rich families, even if the head of the house does not use the drug, the sons soon learn to use it, and almost all are exposed to the temptation of employing it, as many of their friends and acquaintances are in the habit of smoking; and it is considered a mark of politeness to offer the pipe to a friend or visitor. Many persons fly to the use of the pipe when they get into trouble, and when they are afflicted with chronic or painful diseases, sleeplessness, &c. Several persons who have been attended for malignant tumours were made victims of the drug, by the use of it to appease the pain and distress they had to endure. The beggars are, to a great extent, under its influence; but they use the dregs and scrapings only of the half-consumed drug, which is removed from the pipe-head when it is cleaned. The most common cause of the Chinese resorting to the use of the opium-pipe is their not knowing how to employ their leisure hours