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Show AMERICAN OPIUM SMOKERS. Who Arc the Victims That Enjoy the Fatal Drug. The class of Americans most addicted to opinm smoking are said to be actors and traveling men, with a fair sprinkling of all other- professions and pursuits mixed in with them. One of the most complete wrecks from opium in this city to-day is a lawyer, says the Chicago In-ter-Ocean,.viho in two short years has lost a practice worth at least $40,000 a year and a number of friends worth all the' way from a pleasant handshake to the cheerful loan of a thousand or two. ; He tried it just to see how it went, and it ! went very badly in his case, indeed. Today To-day his friends avoid him and his family j are dependent on others, while he himself him-self finds no enjoyment outside of a few pipes of opium, smoked whenever and wherever it can ba found, for the little money he can raise. Another authenticated authenti-cated case is that of a young lady who has smoked as high as 720 grains of opium a day, but she could afford it, as she came of "a good family in this city, and had money to keep up the habit. It is said there are a number of women in New York who average 490 grains of opium per day, and many men who smoke from 600 to 800 grains, daily, every other day, or once a week, as the habit has gained control over them, and as they are able to regulate their actions in this respect. Some men make . it a regular practice to go on an opium debauch once a week or even once a month, as the case may be, but the great majority of them smoke and dream continually as long as their money lasts, stopping only when cash gives out and the den-keepers become be-come obstinate. , Stringent State laws have failed completely to put a stop to the practice in this as well as other States, and if the habit increases as rapidly with- j in the next ten years as it has in the past j ten years, it will become a serious ques- i tion with Uncle Sam what to do with the j load introduced here by the Ghinese orig- j ally in the shape of the little opium pea, j and swelled to the size of a small world j of woe through the readiness with which a civilized people nurse it. In some parts of China it has been so very destructive j that the lips of opium smokers that is, j the upper lip were cut away in' order to j prevent suction in holding the pipe for to i "draw," but even this failed to airest the j habit or stop new recruits from . joining,; the vast army of smokers. , J |