Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1879 — Opium-Smoking in Japan. [ARTICLE]

Opium-Smoking in Japan.

The Japan Weekly Mail says: Matsumoto Bunkichl, the well-known momban at the race-course at Negishi. has been condemned to ten years’ penal servitude for lending room to Cninamen to smoke opium therein. The case was proved by several of the Kanagawa Ken policemen: and, further, the accused is said to have confessed his guilt at the Bluff police station. The sentence will appear to foreigners to be out of all proportion to the magnitude of the offense; but it was provided for by a law, the object and stern intention ot which is that opium shall not be allowed to be smoked by any subject of the empire, or any one amendable to its jurisdiction. The culprit in this case being a Japanese, has been treated with exemplary severity, with the view, probably, of deterring lany of his compatriots from following his example, and as a warning to those who indulge in similar practices to des at before they are discovered.