Officer James Boyle

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Old Print Article: “An Opium Smoker Arrested At Coney Island,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1887)

October 18, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

Opium den in San Francisco's Chinatown in the 1880s. (Image by Louis Philippe Lessard.)

I knew that there were people in the 19th-century who were opium eaters, but I wasn’t aware that it was a competitive sport. According to this odd article in the June 15, 1887 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, you could win championship medals for cooking opium in national competitions. Also: Montana was apparently an opium hotbed in the 1880s. Who knew? An excerpt:

“A confirmed opium fiend has been discovered among the performers at a Coney Island music pavilion. He is the possessor of two championship medals for cooking opium, won in national contests among opium eaters. Word was brought to Police Headquarters on Wednesday that an opium den was in operation at Frank Reeber’s on the Sea Beach walk. Officer James Boyle went to the place and found that Charles Sheppard was the only opium smoker in the place, and that he had his ‘layout’ in his bedroom. He and the layout were taken before Justice Newton, and Sheppard was let go by his own recognizance. Yesterday morning, with hollow eyes and shaking limbs, he appeared before the Justice and begged for the return of his layout, saying that without it he felt as if wild horses were tearing him apart. The Justice told him he might take a cell and ‘hit’ the pipe, and he eagerly agreed to give up liberty for the boon of smoking. He was not allowed to do this, however, but later in the day upon his explanation that he must have the opium and that he was lessening the dose to cure himself gradually of the habit, his layout was returned. He went directly to his room and lying on his bed in a mild ecstasy of anticipation began preparing and cooking the pellets. He is but 19, and contracted the habit two years ago in Montana.”

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