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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne: which afflict humanity! The Chinese government has in vain
attempted to deal with the evil by stringent laws. It passed
gradually from the rich, to whom it was at first exclusively reserved,
to the lower classes, and then its ravages could not be arrested.
Opium is smoked everywhere, at all times, by men and women,
in the Celestial Empire; and, once accustomed to it, the victims
cannot dispense with it, except by suffering horrible bodily contortions
and agonies. A great smoker can smoke as many as eight pipes a day;
but he dies in five years. It was in one of these dens that Fix
and Passepartout, in search of a friendly glass, found themselves.
Passepartout had no money, but willingly accepted Fix's invitation
Around the World in 80 Days |
