Chinese Opium-Smokers.

Scarce colonial engraving showing Chinese opium smokers in Melbourne.

Opium was not illegal in Victoria until 1905, and the volume imported into Australia increased fivefold in the late 1800s to keep up with demand. Contemporary witness account:
There were some, twelve or fifteen persons in the place when we entered, and the peculiar acrid smell of the burning opium was almost unendurable for the first few moments…The scene in the house we visited was of the usual kind. Couches, or rather benches covered with straw matting, are placed in little alcoves. On each bench reclines a brown and withered figure, whose unstrung muscles, leaden eyes, and corpselike visage, proclaim him a slave to the influence of the drug… “

Contemporary witness account:
There were some, twelve or fifteen persons in the place when we entered, and the peculiar acrid smell of the burning opium was almost unendurable for the first few moments…The scene in the house we visited was of the usual kind. Couches, or rather benches covered with straw matting, are placed in little alcoves. On each bench reclines a brown and withered figure, whose unstrung muscles, leaden eyes, and corpselike visage, proclaim him a slave to the influence of the drug… “

From the original edition of the Australasian Sketcher.