Excerpt from What Is the Opium Trade?The opium is prepared by the Government agents for the China market, by rolling it into large balls covered with a coating of opium-paste and poppy leaves, so as to exclude the air; it is then packed in chests - forty balls to a chest, and transferred to the Government warehouses at Calcutta, where the drug is put up to auction at the Government sales, of which there are four each season, at intervals of a month, commencing with December or January. At these sales the drug sells at prices varying from 700 to 1600 rupees a chest, containing 116 lbs. Weight, and yielding a profit to the Government of from 40 to 120 per chest. Their total revenue from this source, including a transit duty on the Malwa exported from Bombay, is estimated at five millions sterling for the year 1857. Malwa opium is that grown in the Independent native States. It must all pass through Bombay, where, in order to keep down its production, it is charged with a duty of 400 rupees per chest.The merchants in India purchase the Opium either on their own account or for mercantile houses in China or elsewhere, and it is then shipped in fast-sailing vessels capable of carrying from 500 to 1000 chests. Of late years the monthly steamers of the Peninsular and Oriental Company have carried cargoes of the drug to China.

The quantity thus imported into China from both sides of India now exceeds chests, roughly estimated at sterling. A portion also goes to Singapore for consumption throughout the islands of the eastern Archipelago.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition.

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