In Yuen-nan, especially since the exit
of opium, this common cigarette is smoked by high and low, rich and
poor. I have been offered them at small feasts, and when calling upon
high officials at the capital have been offered a packet of cigarettes
instead of a whiff of opium, as would have been done formerly. One is
not, of course, prepared to say whether such a trade is desirable or
not, but it merely needs to be made known that towards the middle of the
present year (1910) a proclamation was issued from the Viceroy's _yamen_
at Yuen-nan-fu speaking in strongest terms against the increasing habit
of smoking foreign cigarettes, to show the trend of official opinion on
the subject. After having referred to the enormous advances made in the
imports of cigarettes, the proclamation deplored the general tendency of
the people to support such an undesirable trade, and exhorted the
citizens to turn from their evil ways. We cannot stop the importation of
cigarettes, it read, but there is no need for our people to buy.
* * * * *
At Chao-t'ong I stayed with the Rev. Dr. Savin, and spent a very
pleasant two days' rest here in his hospitable hands. It was in this
district I first came across goitre, the first time I had seen it in my
life.
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