OPIUM SMOKING

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4449, 31 August 1901, Page 4 (Supplement)

OPIUM SMOKING

THE STORY OP A PARISIAN DEN

It may perhaps., be recollected that a year or two ago a great stir was made over the discovery of an opium den near the Arc d’Etoile in the Champs Elysees. The matron who kept it, and who made a neat little fortune out of the place, had married a Chinaman, and it was he who first developed a liking for the drug in his wife, and afterwards initiated her into the mysteries of the whole thing. One peaceful summer afternoon, however, an inquisitive police officer marched into the premises, confiscated all the stock intrade, took the names of the smokers of both sexes who were found in the salons, and requested the owner of tho establishment to come to answer for her misdeeds before the police commissary. The breaking up of her “home” presumably broke tire matron's heart. She departed this life not long afterwards, and it was thought she had left behind her no imitators. This, it appears, is a mistake. A wily son of the Celestial Empire—a former acquaintance of the defunct Mme. Alsam, Whose salons he frequented, continues to trade in opium, and until now has so well managed his affairs as to elude the interference of the police. Not only does he succeed im obtaining opium by subterfuge, the which he sells at a fine price to amateurs of tho drug, but he gives “lessons” in opium smoking to high-born society ladies and demi-mondaines, attending on them under the cover of secrecy at their residences, where he undertakes to initiate his fair-pupils into the art of deriving tho greatest amount of pleasure from the fumes of the narcotic. All this has recently transpired, and has aroused the curiosity of certain journalists, who have ferreted out the additional information. During the Exhibition season last year it appears tho wily Chinaman frequently sold a small pot of opium which cost him a matter of one shilling or a littie more for nearly ton pounds. This, however, was an exceptional piece of luck. As a rule ho sells a pot of opium which costs him two francs for ten francs, which leaves a neat little profit of eivht francs. The manner iu which he has opium smuggled into France is curious. His associate in China appears to bo distinctly an ingenious fellow. He conceals the drug in porcelain vases with double bet. toms, or in porcelain statuettes, whose feet serve as a hiding place. As for all the apparatus' required for smokers of the drug—pipes, lamps, etc. —they are passed as “musical instruments,” in tho case o fpipes the long tubes make them resemble flutes. Other articles are classed broadly as “surgical instruments.” In certain French seaports —Toulon, Marseilles and elsewhere—no great dimculty is experienced in purchasing the drug, despite the prohibition against the sale of poisons without a medical prescription. In Paris, however, the law is more strictly enforced, and chemists are less inclined to incur risk by violating it. At the present moment, there are, it appears, three opium deus in the capital which as yet have escaped detection. This, perhaps, is due to the fact that on the surface they present the innocent as. pect of a commonplace furnished apartment. To one of them a French journalist obtained admission a few days ago, introduced by an habitual frequenter of the place. The matron who ushered in the visitor, after keenly taking stock of him, is described as neither young nor prepossessing in appearance. In tho salons set apart lor clients are a number of low couches, comfortably fitted up for the day-dreamer, whilst the floor is covered with thick carpets to promote noiseless movements and silence. A couple of male smokers and one female, stretched on the couches, were “enjoying” the effects of the drug, which had already sent them into dreamland. These dens seem to prosper, those who frequent them being, owing to one circumstance or another, unable to indulge iu their foolish vice at their own homes.

Not long ago—so the French journalist was told —a sturdy Englishman, strongnerved, self possessed, and a past master in all athletic sports, had the fancy to try an opium, pipe in this den. His vigorous constitution notwithstanding, he was simply a raving madman for the space of five hours, although he had only smoked four pipes. He had to be bound, arms and legs, to prevent ‘‘accidents.” Cases of the kind, however, are said to be the exception. If the unpractised opium smoker will follow the instructions given him a t his first attempts, and keep quiet and motionless, he will be troubled nei. ther with headache nor with sickness. The whole effect of the place, as written down by the journalist who visited it, is distinctly depressing. Clients move and act like somnambulists, smoking one cigarette, one pipe upon another until a species of lethargy is produced supposed to be peopled with the most entrancing visions. Probably before long we shall hear of another rooting out of the smokers by. the police.