Elizabeth Gaskell really said, in the year 1848, "Why don't we take a minute and try to understand drug addicts and why they indulge in such dangerous habits before we judge them."
It is true, much of their morbid power might be ascribed to the use of opium. But before you blame too harshly this use, or rather abuse, try a hopeless life, with daily cravings of the body for food. Try, not alone being without hope yourself, but seeing all around you reduced to the same despair, arising from the same circumstances; all around you telling (though they use no words or language), by their looks and feeble actions, that they are suffering and sinking under the pressure of want. Would you not be glad to forget life, and its burdens? And opium gives forgetfulness for a time.
The empathy of this author is astounding.
