It is most probable that at the time Of the order there were many more than this in Peiping, for during the period of confusion which followed the ousting of the Sung Cheh-yuan regime and the establishment of the Provisional Government the drug traffic was one of the first trades to get on its feet and flourish, Nor were the Chinese and Japanese en tirely to blame for this for some foreigners had a finger in the pie.
But if the order of May 11 decreased the number of dens and shops. it also put the seal of legality on the drug business. The sale, purchase and smoking of opium is now a legal busines:
A curious part of the order of May 11 was the stipulation that each of the 300 opium smoking dens should have a minimum capital of $1,000 and that each of the 100 shops allowed to sell raw opium must have a minimum capital of $10,000, The reason for this does not appear to be clear, but it is thought by some that this-is to keep the poorer people as far away from the drug as possible as obviously a proprietor who has put $1,000 into an opium den wants better paying custom than the rickshaw coolie who wants a 5 cent puff at the pipe.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.