IV. Some Anecdotes of Smugglers and Smuggling 20
VI. Observations on Smugglers and Smuggling 33
IX. Some Observations on the Opium Habit 51
APPENDIX. An Historical Note on Opium in India and Burma 82
Group of Opium Smokers Frontispiece Facing page An Excessive Opium Smoker 40 Opium Smokers’ Appliances 46 Preparing to Smoke Opium 48 Chinaman Smoking Opium 50 Group of Morphia Injectors 58 An Indian Morphinist 62 A Burman Cocaine Eater 72
Our innate free-trade instincts and love of liberty revolt against what we look upon as uncalled for interference with our rights when we are called upon to declare and pay duty on a box of cigars or a bottle of whisky when we disembark at a Customs port; and we look upon evasions of these obligations, not as evidences of moral obliquity, but as a very proper exercise of the exemption which we claim as our right. On the whole, this point of view is to be sympathized with, and in the case of such innocuous articles as laces, scent, and feathers, it is to be excused; the mysteries of the revenue law, and the underlying principles of taxation, are unfamiliar to most of us. But a greater degree of culpability must be attached to those who seek to evade the law by the illicit importation of articles whose unrestricted use produces nothing but harm; and while the former class of delicts may be classed as mere revenue offences, the latter must be treated as crimes and severely punished as such.
It is in the nature of things that articles which have come to be looked upon as necessaries of life, such as tea, tobacco, wine and spirits, should be taxed moderately; and indeed, were any attempt made to render them less easily obtained by raising the taxes on them, unless this course was vital in the interests of the country, there would be just reasons for profound popular dissatisfaction and disgust; but in the matter of noxious intoxicating drugs the case is reversed, and authoritative opinion inclines to the highest taxation, or even to total prohibition. Opium is taxed to a point little short of prohibition; morphia and cocaine are entirely prohibited to the public except for medical purposes; and hemp drugs are highly taxed in India, and totally prohibited in Burma. Those who quarrel with this state of things are such as have become habituated to these drugs, and of this class there is, unhappily, a large number, so large a number indeed, that their demand for a regular and sufficient supply constitutes a rich market, a market which is supplied by the smuggler who reaps abundant profits.