Page:China- Its State and Prospects.djvu/109

Rh plying up and down the river, which are called fast-crabs, and scrambling dragons. These are well armed, with guns and pikes, and manned with desperate fellows, who go, as if they had wings. All the custom-houses and military stations which they pass, are literally stopped with bribes; and if they chance to meet any of the armed cruisers, the smugglers do not scruple to come to an engagement, and bloodshed and slaughter ensue. The governor of Canton lately sent a naval officer, with a sufficient force, and captured a boat laden with opium, seized one hundred and forty chests, and killed and took prisoners, scores of smugglers; yet, the traffic was not at all checked. Multitudes of the people, have but little dread of the laws, while they use every device to escape punishment, and are eager after gain: indeed, the laws are, sometimes, utterly without effect."

When a Chinese mandarin undertakes to make, and the emperor consents to receive, such a statement as the above, we may conclude that this, and much more, is true. In fact, opium is not only regularly introduced, but openly sold, in all parts of China. Notwithstanding the prohibition, opium shops are as plentiful in some towns of China, as gin shops are in England. The sign of these receptacles, is a bamboo screen, hanging before the door, which is as certain an intimation there, as the chequers are here, that the slave of intemperance may be gratified. Into these shops, all classes of persons continually flock, from the pampered official to the abject menial. No one makes a secret of the business or the practice, and though the officers of government are loud in denouncing the indulgence in public, they privately wink at what is patronized by their own example, or subservient to their own interests. It is a well-known circumstance, that the government officers come regularly on board the receiving ships at Lintin, and demand so many dollars per chest, for conniving at smuggling; while it is currently reported, that even the viceroy of Canton