Strong Indictment by Anti-Opium Association: Phenomenal Growth in Use of Cocaine and Morphia Peking, Jan. 9.
Reuter's Agency is informed by the International Anti-Opium Association, Peking, that reports from the big cities of Manchuria show a recrudescence in the use of addict tive drugs which exceeds the early opium days when no restrictions were placed on their use or sale. This condition corresponds with the reports which are daily reaching the Association from many parts of China. The morphia influx which is increasing month by month undoubtedly threatens to envelop China with a more destructive force than opium.
In Mukden and South Manchuria generally the sale of morphia is principally in the hands of Japanese druggists and pedlars. The latter are initiating the villagers in large numbers in the use of drugs. As drugs are cheaper than opium they are preferred.
Jehol opium is being sold at $2 per ounce for the cheaper and $4 for the better quality. This low cost is attributed to the competition of opium brought in by a gang of smugglers from Siberia and North Manchuria. This gang is said to consist of Russians, Japanese, Chinese, Greeks, Caucasians, turks and nondescripts of other nationalities, to the number of about 1,000. They are said to have in their pay minor Customs, railway and police officials all along the Tine of traffic, so that it is rarely that one of them is arrested. Associated with this gang are foreign women who travel between Changchun and Peking carrying morphia and cocaine on their persons. These women retail the "snow" to the frequenters of the places where they reside.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.