Portfolio Chinensis: Or, A Collection of Authentic Chinese State Papers Illustrative of the History of the Present Position of Affairs in China

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translator, 1840 - Aliens - 191 pages
 

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Page 4 - Being careless of life,- and regardless of your ownsclves and that of your family, matters have reached their present crisis. Thus the fish covets the bait, and forgets the hook : the miller-fly covets the candle-light, but forgets the fire: and the ape, in his inordinate desires for the wine, thinks not of the desires of men for his blood. These creatures bring misfortunes upon themselves. Is not this egregiously strange? Habits which arc thus disastrous are unchangeable, being like the successive...
Page 2 - Furthermore, although the opium exists among the outside barbarians, there is not a man of them who is willing to smoke it himself; but the natives of the flowery land are, on the contrary, with willing hearts, led astray by them; and they exhaust their property, and brave the prohibitions by purchasing a commodity which inflicts injury upon their own vitals. To such an extent has the stupidity of our people reached! It is like the...

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