Fix and Passe-partout perceived that they had entered a smoking-house, patronised by those wretched idiots devoted to one of the most injurious vices of humanity—the smoking of opium, which the English merchants sell every year to the value of one million four hundred thousand pounds. The Chinese Government has vainly endeavoured by stringent laws to remedy the evil, but in vain. The habit has descended from the rich to the poorest classes, and now opium is smoked everywhere at all times by men and women, and those accustomed to it cannot do without it A great smoker can consume eight pipes a
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