Melissa Macauley

Small Time Crooks: Opium, Migrants, and the War on Drugs in China, 1819–1860

Zhang Rui moved from Tianjin to Beijing to open a fish shop just inside the Desheng Gate. On a visit home to Tianjin in late November 1844, he encountered a boatman dealing in inexpensive raw opium and “came up with the idea of selling it in order to fish for profit.” He purchased twenty-one liang of raw opium and carried the contraband back to his shop in Beijing. Together with Wang Yongde, his shop assistant and fellow Tianjin native, he processed the opium into the concoction enjoyed by consumers. They also invested in various opium paraphernalia in the expectation that they would sell these items along with the processed opium and “turn an even greater profit.” Their hopes were not misplaced as income from their opium business soared and, presumably, fish sales continued apace. On the evening of January 10, 1845, old friends and family from Tianjin and elsewhere who engaged in the fish, lumber, and mutton-selling trades came to his shop “to discuss the prevailing price of fish.” Just as they were sitting down, officials came to inspect the shop and discovered the remaining opium, porcelain opium bowls, and bamboo pipes. Six men were arrested, but only Zhang and Wang were found guilty of opium dealing. Officials accepted the stories the other men told that they had no idea Zhang and Wang were selling opium out of their shop. Wang was also convicted for opium smoking, for he confessed that he had just happened to smoke opium for the first and only time in his life the very afternoon of his arrest. Both men admitted their crimes and asked for mercy, insisting that they had sold opium only “this one time” and

Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China

1. Introduction 2. A vision of sexual order 3. The evolution of rape law: female chastity and the threat of the outside male 4. The problem of the penetrated male: Qing sodomy legislation and the fixing of male gender 5. Widows in the Qing chastity cult the nexus of sex and property in law and in womens lives 6. Sexual behavior as status performance: the regulation of prostitution before 1723 7. The extension of commoner standards: Yongzheng reforms and the criminalization of prostitution 8. Conclusion Appendices.