dry, which are passed with acclamation and inserted in the newspapers. This sort of thing deceives nobody but the infatuated dupes of the Anti-Opium Society, for whose edification they are principally intended; just as the American orator, though speaking to empty benches in Congress, made what his constituents at Bunkum considered a capital speech. All these anti-opium articles, speeches, and resolutions are based upon the same model. They assume certain statements as existing and acknowledged facts which have never been proved to be such, and then proceed to draw deductions from those alleged facts. This style of argument can scarcely be praised for its fairness; it certainly places those who hold contrary views, and who object to employing similar tactics, at a disadvantage. This is especially remarkable in Mr. Storrs Turner's article in the "Nineteenth Century." There the writer, taking all his facts for granted, plunges at once _in medias res_, and proceeds to enlighten his readers with all the confidence of the pedagogue who, strong in his axioms and postulates, explains to his admiring pupils the mysteries of the "Asses' Bridge." The English people have hitherto had little or no knowledge of the opium question, save what they hear through the Anti-Opium Society, in whose teaching some of them put faith, if only for the reason that they are mostly clergymen and others of high character. And here I may observe that, supposing the pro-opium advocates, or perhaps I should more correctly say the general public, had a counter society to disseminate their opinions, that they had organised a committee with command of ample funds, and had officers to carry out their views, this Anglo-Oriental Society would be strangled in three months; for fiction, however speciously represented, cannot hold its own against fact. There is an old saying that "what is everybody's business is nobody's business," and so it has been with the pro-opium side of the question. The foreign merchants in China, as a body, have no interest in the Indo-China opium trade. They would not care if the trade were to be suppressed to-morrow, and therefore they take no active part in opposing the Anti-Opium Society. The general public also take little or no interest in the matter, and it is really only those who are actuated by a sense of duty, or who, like myself, have followed the question, and who, from practical acquaintance and a thorough research into all its bearings, take more than ordinary interest in the subject, who think of refuting the monstrous misrepresentations of the anti-opium people. Therefore it is that the other side have had practically the whole field to themselves. Upon the like conditions any imposture could for a time be successfully carried on. The days of the anti-opium agitation are, however, happily drawing to a close. A flood of light from various sources has within the past year been thrown upon the subject. The unwholesome mists of