ONLY BY THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT.
It is not the demon alcohol alone by which Satan gathers in his captives. He has among his faithful servants tobacco, opium, hashish, and several others of the same sort, not the least of which is Captain Cocaine. Many who break from whisky and opium turn to cocaine. It is much cheaper and acts more quickly than morphine. Not long ago the New Orleans Times-Democrat told of the ravages of the drug in that city. It declares that opium-smoking is a thing of the past, with the exception of its use by the “fiends;” but it remarks:— “Never a vice was killed, tho, that another did not spring up in its place. Cocaine has superseded opium, and it is a question if cocaine is not doing more harm to-day than opium ever did. Indulgence in the cocaine habit is cheap. There is no stove needed, no needle, no long pipe. You can take cocaine in whisky, you can inhale the white powder, or you can use it hypodermically. Any one of the three methods insures forgetfulness and recklessness. Cocaine is dreamily maddening, it intoxicates, it deadens heartaches and bodily pains. Ten cents worth of cocaine will last most victims of the habit one to two days. Its extreme cheapness puts it within the reach of the most poverty-stricken.” “The police realize what harm the cocaine habit is doing, and are making every effort to stamp it out. They are making slight headway, tho. Not a day passes but that from four to ten shattered wrecks of humanity, devotees of the drug, drag their trembling forms from the prisoner’s pen and take their medicine from the recorders in the shape of fines and imprisonments.” “‘The cocaine habit,’ said a police officer, as the women were being led back to the dock, ‘is responsible for more crime, for more immorality, and for more degradation than any of the standard evils. Of course it is against the law to sell the stuff, and any one caught in the act would be bitterly prosecuted, but there is no getting at the facts. There are too many druggists who are ready to violate the law for the profit there is in it. No reputable druggist will furnish the drug, but, as detection is impossible and there is big money in selling the stuff in spite of its comparative cheapness, a cocaine fiend never has any trouble in gratifying his appetite.” “‘You can take cocaine anywhere. A pinch of the stuff on the back of the thumb nail, a sniff, and the drug is at work. I suppose cocaine is mostly taken this way. Inveterate users of the drug, I believe, get sooner or later to using the hypodermic syringe. I remember not long ago when we arrested a hoodlum and cocaine fiend and locked him up for creating a disturbance and using vile language. We searched him at the station and took away his syringe and supply of cocaine. When the effect of the drug already in his system wore off, he gave way to hysterical grief. Tough as he was, he wept and begged and prayed for his accustomed instrument and its deadly load. We refused to give him back his belongings. He grew hysterical, and at last we thought it safer to telephone the Charity Hospital for instructions. We were told that it would be dangerous to keep him without the drug.” “‘I carried the fellow his syringe and some cocaine. He danced and shouted for joy. Dissolving about a grain of the drug in a spoonful of water, he rolled up his sleeve. The marks left by previous injections were so thick that it was impossible for him to find a spot big enough to allow the insertion of the needle. The other sleeve was rolled up. There was the same result. At last it was necessary to insert the needle point on the man’s right thigh, where there was an unpunctured spot the size of a dime. The man’s skin looked as if he was suffering from smallpox. It was a horrible sight. I believe he has since died. I never knew until then how awful the use of the drug was.” “‘In my opinion the worst result of the cocaine habit is that it absolutely kills all sense of self-respect and decency. Its users have no morals, no consciences. There is no depth too low for them to dive into to procure the money for supplying themselves with the drug. Opium-smoking is almost stamped out. Of course it still goes on in the Chinese quarter, and there are some fiends who smoke in their rooms, but it isn't anything like it used to be. If the cocaine habit could be stopped, it would be a good thing. But there isn't any way to stop it. Some druggists will sell it and buyers won't give them away.’” New Orleans has not a monopoly of the evil. We wish it had. A physician in San Francisco tells us that the use of the deadly drug in that city is widespread and increasing. These things are among the terrible evils which no human hand or human power can stay. It is only the power of the Spirit of Christ which can help these souls. O, there is need of workers! These pictures are not calls to the civil power, but to the church of Christ.