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HAD thought that the.opium den was vicux jeu, that everybody must have heard all about it a hundred times, and must wish never to hear again. But I am assured that this is a wrong impression, and i am asked to add yet one more opium denarticle to those that have gone before.To begin with then, I can think, at the moment, of no .diflerencc between the opium dens of some years ago and those of to-day beyond themore easterly situation of the latter. The docks have grown eastward, andt''the ships have gone with them ; and with the ships have gone the sailors the Chinese stokers, Lascars, and Malays, that smoke opium and need a den to smoke it in. There were some places about Wapping once, and later, I believe, two others were to be found near Three Colt Street. Limehouse, but these I never saw. They moved a street or two of 1 to Limehouse Causeway, and it was here that they achieved their magazine and newspaper fame. There were four—there may have been more - -but I think that only two of these were ever penetrated by copy-hunters. One of these two was genuine enough, and so, no doubt, was the other at first, but in course of time this latter was found to pay so well as a “ show ” den that it was to visitors that it looked for a large part of itsprofits.It was the place to which all the inquiring sightseers were taken who insisted on seeing an opium den and were prepared !o pay for the privilege. Insomuch that if no smokers happened to be on hand at the time of the visit, it was the custom to send out and bring one or two, while the visitors were delayed in a downstairs room with imaginary objections to their admission. It is said also that it was not always opium that was smoked before visitors, because a man inured to the drug might not be within call, and an attempt by another might end in violent sickness. Be these things as they may, the four “jints” nourished exceedingly, and may still flourish - perhaps in changed premises, for I believe a railway widening, or something of the sort, caused a scatter in their neighbourhood. But thereO'has been another move eastward,., and there are two opium-dens now over the Lea, near bv the Victoria and Albert Docks. Ajwin. it is possible that there are more than two, for these establishments do not advertise; but two. certainly.' In these places a Chinaman is rather a rare visitor and the customers, in bulk, are Lascars and Malays. It is7 ✓ ¥-the rarest thing in the world to see a European at a jint ”—that is as a smoker—and though I have seen a negro on the premises he took none of the stuff.There is nothing to surprise one in an opium den—unless it be the cockroaches in one of the Limehouse places, which were as large, as numerous, and as familiar beasts with man as ever in an unclean Eastern trading vessel. The notion of falling asleep among them, one would imagine, would be enough to knock the opium habit out of anybody, for they climbed, in a casual and commonplace wav. about the legs of the most active and wide-awake person who might come near them—in a way, moreover, ereepily suggestive of the habits of impunity they must have acquired by many promenades about the garments and limbs of inert customers.The over-Lea dens I have never seen the inside of. though I believe them to be at least as dirty as those of 1 .imehouse, and even duller. The most interesting of the latter was one which most of the Chinamen frequented, and only a Lascar nowand again. It was kept by a Chinaman—a Chinaman with no pigtail. The loss was a matter of malicious damage, I fancy, a piece of revenge on the part of a compatriot who had a score to settle, and took his opportunity when his victim was asleep or drunk. At any rate, it was a loss that John—every Chinaman is John—took intensely to heart: he promised the offender terrible retribution if he ever met him.John's house was an ordinary-looking little place enough, one of a short row, with two windows upstairs and one down. It had. even in the passage, the close, rag-shop sort of smell that seems native to such houses, when scrupulous cleanliness is not observed. And just at the back of the passage, by the stairs, stood a joss-house : for John was quite a devout sort of person in his own incomprehensible wav. It was no beautiful creation of the Eastern carver and gilder, this joss-house, but a mere deal box—a packing case, I fancy—set on its side and hung with a medley of coloured rubbish, bits of coloured paper and rag, scraps of tinfoil, bits of tin and glass, beads, and the like. There were occasions when John’s higher feelings prompted the burning of other bits of coloured paper before this shrine, but there was little else to distinguish him as a person of deep religious convictions. He was apt to grow a trifle uneasy if a stranger showed any disposition to examine this construction very intimately. It was not, indeed, a matter of religious jealousy, but the fact that , the adjoining room was used, not for opium smoking, but for gambling; and while it is no criminal offence to keep an opium den, a gambling den is a different thing.
Newspaper Details
London West End
London, Middlesex, GB
Wed, Jul 05, 1899
Page 25
Full Page
Clipped by
Dongfeng T.
TX, USA 03 Jan 2020
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