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CHAPTER XXVI.PROGRESS OF OPIUM REFORM.1TN May, 1906, Dr. H. C. DuBose, of Soochow, theXpresidentof the Anti-Opium league, had an interviewwith the Governor-General of the river provinces,H. B. Chou Fu, and was told that, if a memorial signedby missionaries of all nationalities were sent to him,he would forward it to the Throne. Ruled sheets weresent to 450 cities, and the returns gave 1,333 signatures,which were bound in a volume covered with yellowsilk and sent to Nanking, reaching there August iQth,whence they were forwarded to Peking. Dr. A. H.Smith says the result was the decree of September 2oth.On the 20th of September, 1906, the Chinesegovernment issued an imperial edict containing elevenrecommendations to the Throne for the speedy suppression of the opium habit. This was the beginningof the present campaign against opium. A timely visitof Mr. J. G. Alexander, of England, secretary of theSociety for the Suppression of the Opium Trade, didmuch to encourage the reform.On the 8th of January, 1907, the Chinese government ordered the viceroys to reduce the poppy growingarea by half by the spring of 1908. On May nth, allopium dens in Foochow were closed, and on May i6ththe opium dens in Peking were also closed, but itwas not until the 22nd of June that the opium densof Shanghai native city were closed. On June 25thanother imperial edict was issued prohibiting opiumsmoking and planting. (See Chinese Recorder, January,1908, pages 31-32.)After this various other large cities followed suitwith the closing of their opium dens, but it was notuntil March 2Oth, 1908, that Shanghai foreign settle-