The date is the 30th September 1893, the newspaper is The Illustrated Police Budget, and this rather jocular tale is both an educational soujon and a warning of the dangers of the opium den. It came at a time when there was a Royal Commission on Opium looking into its usage and effects. I transcribe this story verbatim from the original with all it's outdated vernacular, please bear that in mind.
"Never mind your small vices," returned the great and mighty; "I asked you a simple question, and I want a straightforward answer." "Then," I remarked, in that weak tone which always characterises my interviews with the superior creature, "I can safely say that the noxious drug is beyond my ken."
"I thought so. Your truculence has shown it, and you must bring a soothing influence to bear upon your future conduct." He spoke in that masterful way of his, which I have always attempted to resent, I being one of "the heirs of all the ages in the foremost, files of Time," and he being merely the instrument through which these precious reminiscences are given to the public.
"Look here!" I exclaimed. He looked, and then the heir subsided. A slight cough followed, and he knew that he had conquered the rebellious spirit. "Prowler, " he resumed, "do you know that the Opium Commission has been sitting?" " I presume it is not a standing committee," I replied, looking at him with a sickly smile. He cast upon me a withering glance, and I immediately searched for my hat.
"Prowler, I have had some experience of your jokes," he said; "but you must not attempt to play them off upon me. Keep them, sir, for a comic paper; the editor may have more mercy upon you than I have."
"Alas!" I observed, with a sigh, "he may, indeed." The glance he gave me was unutterable, and I actually trembled.
"The business I have now in store for you," said the boss, as he flung himself back in his chair and looked at his fingertips, "may be fraught with some difficulty; but I know, Prowler, that difficulties only present themselves to you for the purpose of being overcome. Now, I asked you the question 'Have you ever tried opium?'"
"Never, guv'nor, never!" I answered.
"Then you must. That's all."
"Sir," I began, looking extremely serious, "the opium eater is one of the vilest specimens of humanity, and surely you do not wish me to emulate such a being."
"Prowler, dear boy, you must not speak to me in that way. You are evidently labouring under some wild delusion regarding the victim of the opium habit. You must read the reports of the Opium Commission, and find what some of the doctors say. The question of the moment seems to be, 'Is the use of the poppy injurious or is it not?' Now, you must go and settle the matter as far as your observation can penetrate."
"It is a weighty order," I replied; "but as I know the alternative, I shall do my best."
"Prowler, you are invaluable!"
He grasped my hand, and any wavering I might previously have experienced vanished in a moment. The grasp of a boss cures tremor. I went downstairs with that elation in my soul which makes a surrounding of roses. My mission was clear before me, and the bus or rail was the means of accomplishment. I chose the former.
"Blackwall!" shouted the gentleman who superintends the arrangement on board the vessel of the highway.
"Right you are!" I responded, and immediately took a berth.
There probably is not a more dreary ride in the metropolis than that between Bank and Limehouse. No building that you pass is connected with anything which inspires the soul with the grander and more ennobling feelings of humanity. All is sordid - sordid as was the errand upon which I was bound.
I had been directed to Limehouse by a friend who had once been on the same prowl, and said he knew all about it. When I reached the fine old church, which stands on the right, and looms large over that riparian locality, I descended from my perch on the bus and began to look around. Up to that moment I had made no special agreement with myself as to what plan I should pursue to find any particular den wherein the Indian drug was consumed.
So I did exactly what ninety nine men out of a hundred would have done under the circumstances. I "asked a p'liceman." He was a very fine and large specimen of the fraternity, but alas! he could give me no information.
"Don't know nothin' about 'em," he said, with a magnificent down east accent. "There ain't none on my beat, nohow."
"But surely you must have heard of these places?" I urged.
"No, never 'eard nothin', not a word."
This gentleman of negatives slightly disconcerted me. Had I left my beloved Fleet Street on a wild goose chase? Surely not.
 |
| London Street, Limehouse - Joseph Pennell 1899 |
"Do you think they could give me any information at the police station?" I asked.
"Don't know, I'm sure."
"Where is the police station?"
"Go up the street there, and you'll see the blue lamp."
This was something definite at last, so I had to be satisfied with the hope that I might glean an intelligible answer from the inspector on duty.
I found him a very civil fellow indeed; but no, he was very sorry, they had no opium dens in that locality at all events. "But 'Edwin Drood,' and the Strand Magazine, and all that sort of thing, can't be wrong," I said. "Such places must exist."
"I have no doubt they do," was the reply; "but I have no knowledge of them." Here was a decided check. Still I was not to be baffled. The vision of my irate boss sprang up before me, and I went at it again.
"Have you any idea where I should go to gain the information I want? Here is my card, and you can see that it is not for the purpose of indulging in the narcotic that I wish to find out the spot."
"Oh, I can understand that very well, sir, but I can tell you nothing for certain. If you went nearer to the docks, where some of the large ocean vessels are, you might probably stand a chance of learning something amongst the Chinese and Lascars."
"Ah, very good!" I replied. "That's is precisely the point that I wish to get at."
He gave me some directions, and I set out on a further voyage of discovery, till I arrived at a villainously low public house which I thought likely to answer my purpose. There was a slatternly barmaid inside, and on my making enquiries she was quite willing to let me know all that I required.
"Oh yes," she said, "we often have visitors like you come round and ask us questions about the opium dens. If John was here he would tell you all about the places, and take you with him for a trifle."
"Bless you," I returned, "John is the very gentleman I want to find. Can you inform me where I am likely to light on him."
"He generally comes in about this time. These three are waiting for him now."
She pointed at some individuals in the next compartment, and I craned my neck round the partition and saw that they were Celestials.
They were evidently of the lowest class of Chinese coolies, and by their dirty appearance could not have been long out of the stokehole of some eastern liner. Their high cheekbones seemed ready to burst through their skin, so thin and emaciated they were, while their almond shaped eyes were the merest slits in the face.
They wore the coarse cotton blouses of their race, with little round caps, and were altogether the most unprepossessing like creatures one would care to meet.
"What sort of a man is John?" I asked of the barmaid.
"He's a Chinaman like the rest, only he doesn't dress quite the same way."
"A little more civilised, I suppose?"
"Well, I don't know much about that, sir, some of the people that come to see him are civilised enough; but here his is to answer for himself."
As she spoke, a short, shrivelled up old chap came in, wearing a thick woolen comforter round his neck and a long overcoat. Although he had a pigtail like the others, he had allowed the rest of his hair to grow to the orthodox English length, and this crop of coarse stubble was surmounted by a cap of the coster fashion.
"Good evening John," I said; "will you join me in a drop of something to drink?"
He winked slyly, and expanded his wide mouth in a grin of the largest dimensions I had ever seen.
"Me belly glad," he returned.
Asking him what his peculiar weakness was, I was slightly astonished at his confessing a partiality for port wine. Knowing the Oriental objection to intoxicating beverages, I had thought that the fermented juice of the grape would not have met with his approval; but I was to discover many strange things that night.
When John had interviewed his three customers he came back to me, and offered to take me to his house. It was not far to the scene of luxury where the delights of opium smoking are indulged in; but I would advise no one to attempt to reach it without a guide. Down an archway, and through a small court reeking with the odours of indescribable garbage, and out again into a little square of old two story houses, which were all in a state verging upon ruin.
At the corner was a dingy wooden hovel which John claimed as his own, and towards which he directed his footsteps, followed by your humble servant and the three Celestials. At the door the proprietor called for a light, and it was much needed, for the passage beyond was black as the entrance to the nether regions.
A youngish woman, very thin and pale, with her hair done up in a dishevelled knot at the back of her head, made a response to the call, carrying a common tin oil lamp. This was Mrs John, as I afterwards discovered, and an Englishwoman. How she had entered into the bonds of wedlock with this queer looking specimen of humanity whom she called husband there was no means of learning, and I did not care to pry too deeply into their domestic affairs.
She did not seem in the least surprised at seeing a visitor in the garb of civilisation; but politely asked me to walk up. The stairs were very rickety; but I managed to clamber up them with safety, and came in full view of the master's establishment.
It was an extremely mean and miserable little room. The fireplace was narrow and the ashes of many days had accumulated underneath. There was no fender. In the centre of the place a round table stood upon three legs, and on either side of the fire was a common wooden chair. The most conspicuous article of furniture was a large old fashioned, four poster bedstead, on which the bed was arranged according to the Chinese fashion.
It was rolled up like a huge bolster all along the length of the bedstead, leaving the mattress bare except for a large grass mat. The bed hangings were of some light gauzy stuff, but dirty, like everything else in the room, and hitched up at intervals on bare nails. A few tawdry, highly coloured pictures decorated the walls, and contrasted grimly with the blackened paper upon which they hung. The ceiling was as black as the walls, and just over the window there had been a fall of plaster, showing the laths behind, through which the rain had at some period percolated and run down, leaving long streaks upon the sides of the room.
The preparations for enjoying the luxury of opium smoking were now entered upon by John; and I awaited the result with great interest.
John is supposed to be the most expert preparer of opium in the whole of the western hemisphere, so far as Europe is distinct from Asia, and has had many visits from alummans of high degree to witness the method of making the drug ready. This is the most interesting portion of the whole.
The implements required are a small lamp with a shade over it, and a hole bodkin or picker, sharp at one end, and with the other flat, and last, but not least, the pipe itself. The point of the bodkin is first dipped into a small pot or bowl containing a black, treacly looking substance, and twirled rapidly round between the finger and thumb.Naturally a small portion of the substance adheres to the dipper, and this is transferred immediately to the lamp, and passed about in the flame till it is sufficiently hardened. After that the operation is repeated, another coating of the opium being placed upon the surface of the first adhering drop, and so on until the little lump has grown to the size of a marrow fat pea.
Now comes the excitement, if it may be called so.
The smoker mounts the bed with his back and head against the rolled up portion, and his lower extremities stretched out on the mattress. He takes the pipe in his hand, and lies there all anticipatory of the pleasures to come.
The pipe itself is not an enticing implement. It suggests an intoxication of music rather than of anything more detrimental to the human system. In fact, it is simply a flute like bit of bamboo about eighteen inches to a couple of feet in length, with a bowl fixed into it some two or three inches from the end. There is no mouthpiece whatsoever, the smoker taking the whole tip of the reed into his mouth. The top of the bowl is flat, with a small orifice in the centre.
The inhalation of the drug is commenced with the transference of the pellet of opium to the little receptacle in the bowl of the pipe. This requires some dexterity, but John is an adept of many years' practice, and he never misses the exact point. From the flame to the pipe is but a short distance, and when the small lump has been cooked to the requisite turn, he nips it into the holder with the eye of an expert. He then reverses the end of the dipper and presses it upon the pipe, forcing it well down.
The smoker was now the object of my strict attention.
With the bowl of the pipe held over the flame of the lamp, he slowly drew in a long, deep breath. The veins of his forehead soon began to swell, and the dull, leaden pallor of his face gave place to a brighter tint. The heavy eyes emitted a gleam, and the nostrils expanded.
One inhalation and the smoke was swallowed, being afterwards sent forth in a tiny stream from both mouth and nose, though the smoker tried to retain as much of it as possible. The second and third inhalation followed, and then the form became more flaccid, the eyes drooped and the breathing was slow, but regular.
The fourth and fifth draws of the pipe seemed scarcely so powerful, and when the last was finished the man arose, handed over the pipe, and paid some money, to the expectant John.
"Where do they live when they're ashore?" I asked of Mrs John, referring to the smokers.
"Mostly at the Asiatic Home," she replied, "but some of them live on board the vessels where they are employed, seldom come ashore at all."
"And does your husband do a great trade?"
John heard my question, and looked up with that smile which was anything but "childlike and bland."
It was a low, cunning, wicked leer, which I have seldom seen on a Chinese visage; but which was marvelously portrayed upon the face of the opium cook.
"Me do belly well - sometime," he said.
"How many customers might you have a day, on an average?" I enquired, for I was anxious to get all the information possible, to satisfy the capacious maw of my omnivorous boss.
"Oh, they come very thick at times," answered the lady. "It all depends on the vessels."
"But do you have no regular customers?"
"Oh, yes, we have some."
"Any English?"
She glanced at me with a quick, penetrating glint of the eye, and then, turning to her husband, coughed slightly.
John understood the signal, and shrugged his shoulders.
I saw what that meant. My questioning had gone far enough. There but one way to open a Chinese heart and mouth, if the possessor wishes to keep them closed, and I guessed that way in once. The rapid transfer of a comparatively large silver disc from my pocket to that of my friend John acted like magic.
"Yes," he said, "me hab some Engliss."
I had expected this answer, though I was not altogether sure.
"Where do they come from?" I enquired of the wife.
"I'm sure I can't tell you that," she replied. "Some of them appear to be very wealthy, others are just as poor."
"Any females amongst them?"
Again she gave me that sharp look, but answered for herself.
"They are mostly ladies."
This was a bit of information I did not anticipate.
"Ladies?" I echoed.
"Yes, real ladies. They come in carriages, which they leave at a little distance, and then slip down here quietly."
"But are they dressed as ladies?"
"Oh no! They have generally old dresses on, with a cloak or waterproof over them; but that doesn't deceive me. Don't I John?"
The den keeper, who was preparing another pipe, looked over his shoulder and nodded.
"But how on earth could they have found this place out?" I asked in astonishment. "I'm sure I couldn't get in here again without a guide."
"I don't know," she replied. "I suppose one brought another, and so on."
"Me know all about it," interposed the husband. "Man fust bought 'nudda flend. Now come one, two, the, fo', five - none mo'."
"Then you have only five lady customers," I said.
"Only five real ladies," Mrs John replied, "but we have several other women."
"Of what class?"
"Women who have been in India or China. I believe the ladies have been in the east, but I never ask them."
This was all a revelation to me, and I must confess I hardly believed it; but the serious manner of the woman, who spoke of the things as a matter of course, went far towards convincing me.
"And do they come into this room, and smoke that pipe?" I asked, pointing at the blackened bamboo tube, which was now being sucked at by another of the Orientals.
"No," she replied, "we have another room downstairs in'o which we take our better class of customers. There is another pipe there, too; but though it looks better, it's not nearly so good as this one."
"Ah! I see! It improves by seasoning, like a tobacco pipe."
"Just so. The older the pipe, the better the stronger smokers like it."
"Then there are different degrees of smokers?"
"Oh, yes, There are fourpenny smokers, and any price up to half a crown."
"But I suppose those who can afford it give you a good price?"
John looked up at this, with that imp like expression which he sometimes assumed.
"Me belly poo'. Good people gib me good monee."
"So they ought," I returned, not wishing to pursue the subject too closely, lest I might give offence. "Your best customers, I suppose, are eastern gentlemen?" I resumed.
"No, I don't think they are," said the woman. "You see, there are some people who can prepare their own gum, and there are others belonging to embassies, and such like, who have servants who can do it; but there's not one of them equal to John."
There was a touch of pride in the way she spoke of her husband, and an affectionate look upon her wan face, which showed me that somehow or other this strange creature had a warm heart for the man she had wedded, if wedded she was, according to English ideas.
I had a notion, mistaken as it seemed, that the opium smoker always lay at the scene of his debauch to dream away the effects of it; but two men had by this time gone, and John was preparing the pipe for the last.
"How is it," I asked, "that the people go away immediately after they have finished their pipe and cigarette? (I omitted to mention that each smoke was wound up by a neatly rolled cigarette of light tobacco, which John deftly twirled between his not over clean fingers, and sealed with his own saliva.)
"The long smokers always remain," said the lady. "These people are poor, and cannot afford to pay for a long smoke."
"And the ladies and gentlemen, do they ever remain?"
"The ladies never do, but the gentlemen almost always stay in the room downstairs. You see, it takes some time for the full effect to come on."
"Would you mind showing me the other room?" I asked, in my most insinuating manner.
It was to no avail, however.
"I am very sorry I can't, sir. It's against the rules."
"Ah! There is somebody there perhaps?"
She nodded, and I didn't press the matter, though I would have given worlds to have had a glimpse into the place, and to have seen what manner of man was there.
The third and last customer having now taken his departure, I resolved to try a whiff myself. It was with much diffidence that I made the proposal, not because of my native modesty, which by this time ought to be perfectly patent to the readers of the Illustrated Police Budget; but because I feared the result of such an experiment.
"Would it be taxing your generosity to a very great extent," I said, addressing myself to Mrs John, "to ask you if I might be permitted to try the influence of the seductive poppy?"
"I knew you would ask for that," she replied, with her sad smile. "Everybody who comes as a visitor does so, and it would be out of reason if you didn't."
"Will you grant the favour in my case?" I asked in my most fetching way.
"You'd better not have it," she said; "you won't like it, and it might make you ill."
"Never mind," I urged. "I really wish to test the effects, and will be very greatly disappointed if I have to go away without."
"John," she called down the stairs, for the opium chef had disappeared.
In a few minutes, during which Mrs Chang, as her name turned out to be, tried her hardest to dissuade me from the attempt, the husband again presented himself.
"The gentleman wishes to try a smoke, John. What do you think?" said his wife.
"Me makee little smoke," replied the Chinaman. "No good - no good," he added, shaking his head.
"I suppose you take one yourself, though occasionally?"
"Um, yes. No good first time."
"All right, I don't care. I must have a try. Go on with your pill."
I then took my place upon the mattress in the approved form, just as I had seen the others do, and the lady handed me the pipe. He went to work roasting his gum in the flame as he had previously done, but he was under the impression that one thickness of the stuff would be sufficient for me, although I tried hard to induce him to give me the full quantity.
Mrs John, however, seemed to be fully determined that I was to be stinted, and told her husband that he must on no account give me more than one dip. By and by the dose was ready and transferred to the pipe. I applied my lips to the tube, held the bowl in the flame of the lamp, and took a long pull.
The taste was not pleasant. There was an acrid flavour about the smoke, and the effort to swallow it nearly choked me. Both Mr and Mrs John watched me intently, and I felt their eyes upon me, though I kept my attention fixed on the pipe. A second inhalation was more easily accomplished; but it was succeeded by a feeling of nausea, which was sufficient to make me desist, without the rude snatch of the pipe which the woman made.
"You've had quite enough," she said, "and now you had better get down."
I rose from the bed with the uncomfortable sensation that I had committed an unpardonable offence. My head swam slightly, and it seemed to me as if I had been smoking too much tobacco out of a foul pipe.
I was rather shaky, but the spirit of enquiry was still upon me. "Now then, Mrs John," I said, "give me a story of something that has occured since you married John?"
Mrs John tried to blush as hard as she could through the parchment skin which covered her face. It was not a thorough success, but resulted in a kind of yellow glow which lit up her cheek bones, and tinted her lips with the hue of the Malta citron when it had been sucked.
"Mrs John," I said, "may I softly penetrate to the precincts below?"
"No, there is a lady there," she returned in low tones, for the master was near.
"I don't mind a quid if you'll do it," I whispered.
"Then wait till another customer comes in. I can't do it till then. But when I've to show you downstairs I can manage it."
I was overjoyed. The very thing I had longed for was about to be presented to me.
To be sure, my head was humming round as if I had a decent size top within it; but what cared I? I was about to be shown into the lower and innermost depths - the holy of holies, as it were, of the vile den where I was then immured.
"Do ladies," I asked, "ever have anyone to visit them here?"
She looked indignant. "You are labouring under some error, sir," she said, drawing herself well up to the height of her shrivelled little body; "this is not a house of that sort."
"I beg your pardon, madam," I returned. "I didn't mean anything rude. Only I had a fancy that under opium some little dreamy longing for ------"
"Little dreamy longings don't take place under opium, Mr Reporter, and I hope you don't come here in the expectation of finding them. John, this gentleman wants to go away."
I had offended the lady of the house, and my peep below was denied me forever.
"Takee cigarette," said John, offering me the little roll which he had manufactured in his usual fashion; but I declined with thanks.
"Here, have a slice of lemon," exclaimed the woman, cutting one up on a plate. "That will do you good."
It seemed an excellent suggestion, and I don't think I ever understood what a lemon was like till then.
The abominable taste of the opium was removed by its influence, and it relieved the sick feeling. I then handed John another trifle for this last particular favour, and gave the wife something to buy a present with. The man then accompanied me to the door; but at my request saw me clear of the court and down to the public house again.
"Does your wife smoke?" I asked as we walked along.
"Ah, yes. She smokee little bit."
"And have you any children?"
"No, no chillen," and John shook his head, rather sorrowfully, I thought.
The last question was put with a special design, for it is maintained by the enemies of the habit that opium smoking has a detrimental effect in the matter of families. However, that may be, but this I can safely say, that in my case the influence was anything but pleasant. It produced a sickening sensation, and a fullness of the temples, accompanied by a wavering in my walk, and a generally shaky condition of nerves and muscles, which I have no yearning to undergo again.
In brief, my opinion is that opium smoking in its initiatory stage is a vile fraud.
No comments :
Post a Comment