Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/274

206 1906, the same trade in that year amounted to only 30,000 taels. In parts of Ssŭch'uan I found the people jubilant at the prospect of a campaign against the drug from India. But why? Because they were anxious to fight and stamp out the evil? Because they were yearning to come to the rescue of "the desolate homes, the weeping mothers, the fathers crying, 'O! Absalom, my son, my son,' the degraded wives, the ragged children, the starving households, the fiendish men, the wretched women, the poor suffering sons and daughters of sorrow"? Certainly