London’s Opium Dens.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 29, Issue 18, 6 March 1917, Page 2

London’s Opium Dens.

BY A MAN WHO HAS INVESTI-

GATED THEM.

Opium ! The word conjures up visions of the Bast and of the extraordinary dreams that the disciples of the drug are said to enjoy.

It is in the Bast (of London) and the West (End), too, that the vice of opium-smoking is rampant to-day, and has become so serious a menace, especially to weak-minded, neurotic, and hysterical women, that official steps are being taken to root out the evil.

The widespread nature of the desire for this terrible narcotic is found in the fact that from the Antipodes comes the request of the Commonwealth Government of Australia to the police authorities in the home country to endeavour to prevent the smuggling of opium into their land., It is asserted that large quantities of the drug have reached Australian ports, bundles of it being hidden by coolies in the coal. Members of well-known West-end clubs, and particularly those of a Bohemian character, have beeij the recipients tof “private and confidential” communications from an evidently educated tout in the neighborhood of Mayfair who has been offering, under the pledge of secrecy, to receive novitiates in his “elegant-ly-furnished flat” and to supply them “amidst luxurious surroundings,” with "the fascinations of the East in the form of opium smoking.” His fees are heavy —£3 3s. to £5 ss. being calmly quoted, with reductions for a “scries.”

Women, too, are approached in other ways, and it is asserted that a well-known actress was only rescued, just in time, from the insidious hold which this vile drug has upon the weak-minded.

Private rooms in West-end hotels have, it is said, been rented for no other purpose than an opium debauch, and rumour says that all crevices and openings are plugged and a Chinaman from^ Limehouse "smuggled” in to prepare the pipes. It is of course, the Limehouse district off the West India Dock • Road where the real den (raided sometimes by the police) exists, and a stroll down Pennyfields or Limehouse Causeway, which is as Chinese as Canton itself, would readily make one believe that any of the shrouded windows of the shops had a den .hidden at the back. The interior of an actual- den is by no means anl exhilarating sight. It is small and semidark. The odour is of the paraffin lamp and the nauseous smell of the burnt drug.

Frowzy mattresses' upon the floor or low couches are about the room, and the light is from lamps covered with oiled-paper shades, generally of orange or red.. The recumbent figures of coolies, lascars,’ and others look in their death-like sleep as if they were figures of dirty wax that heat had made to run, and the grin of the imbecile is upon the expressionless features of the figures.

The Chinaman ' who prepares the pipes, which in the East-end costs fewer shillings than it does pounds in the West, squats down before .a spiritlamp upon a little bamboo table on which are.also the pipes and the little dish of opium.

The latter is a thick, sticky substance like tar. The end of a long, thin wire is plunged into this filthy mass and a small portion of it taken up and twisted rapidly round and round until it adheres to the wire in the shape of a ball. This is held in the flame of the spirit-lamp and still twirled and twirled while It is roasted, and this is a very necessary and delicate part of the operation and needs the careful watching of the Chinaman.

It is soon done to a turn, and then the opium pipe is picked up and loaded with it.

The pipe consists of a long reed stem terminating in a small bowl, and the roasted ball of opium is pushed well into the latter. It is enough to last but a little while and may need several renewals before the narcotic state of somnolence' and of utter forgetfulness is reached. The votary takes slow and deliberate whlfis from tbe pipe, and all energy evaporates by degrees from him, lethargy supervenes, and at last he lies like a log and’dreams his dreams --of paradise.

It is said by some that one of the most frequent of the dreams is to see clouds upon clouds of brilliant blue butterflies flitting joyously above blue flowers and under a still bluer sky.—“ Tit Bits.”