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- Cricket-fighting
We went on for some distance beyond the north gate of the city to witness cricket-fighting, a favourite pastime of the Chinese. As we approached the field where it took place, we saw crowds of men standing about some sheds erected on the spot. Most of the company were of the lowest order, but there were some respectable men, including Tartar officers and mandarins. Much money is lost in this form of gambling. On entering the largest shed, we saw a raised platform on which some men sat behind a counter, who were employed in weighing the crickets, in weighing the dollars, in recording the bets, in receiving the money laid by both sides on each match, and in paying the winner of each particular fight, after deducting a percentage for the expenses of the building. In this shed numbers of men were collected, each holding in his hand a little round earthenware basin covered with a cloth. These basins contained the fighting-crickets. The matches are played for large as well as small sums of money, and many hundred dollars changed hands during the short time we were present. - Boy Gambling for Fruit
The Chinese are most inveterate gamblers and I have noticed small boys gambling at stalls where nuts, oranges, or other fruits are sold. In the streets and squares one often sees groups of four or five Chinese squatting, who are engaged in playing cards and dominoes, whilst other stand and look on at the game. - A juggler
Preforming tricks with Jars This engraving exhibits a posture-master balancing two large China vases, and throwing himself into most extraordinary attitudes. - A Female Comedian
It is, perhaps, more proper to call the annexed figure, the representation of a person in the character of a female comedian, than “a female comedian,” as women have been prohibited from appearing publicly on the stage since the late Emperor, Kien Lung, took an actress for one of his inferior wives. Female characters are now therefore performed either by boys or eunuchs. The whole dress is supposed to be that of the ancient Chinese, and indeed is not very different from that of the present day. The young ladies of China display considerable taste and fancy in their head-dresses which are much decorated with feathers, flowers, and beads as well as metallic ornaments in great variety of form. Their outer garments are richly embroidered, and are generally the work of their own hands, a great part of their time being employed in this way. If it was not a rigid custom of the country, to confine to their apartments the better class of females, the unnatural cramping of their feet, while infants, is quite sufficient to prevent them from stirring much abroad, as it is with some difficulty they are able to hobble along; yet such is the force of fashion, that a lady with her feet of the natural size would be despised, and at once classed among the vulgar. - An itinerant musician
The Chinese have full as great a variety of musical instruments as most other nations, but they are all of them indifferent, and the music, if it may be so called, produced out of them, execrable. - A Stage player
By the military emblem on the breast-plate, the annexed figure of a stage player must be intended to represent a great general or some military hero famous in the annals of China. Noisy music and extravagant gestures are the characteristic features of the Chinese stage. - A Raree Show
There is every reason to believe, that Punch and his wife were originally natives of China; and that all our puppet-shows were brought from that country. The little theatre, above the head of a man concealed behind a curtain, is precisely Chinese. Les ombres Chinoises still bear the name of their inventors; but the annexed representation of a puppet-showman is somewhat different from both, and is the simple origin of the Fantoccini, which consists in giving motion to the puppets, by means of springs attached to particular parts of the figures. These little dancing puppets are not merely exhibited for the amusement of children; they furnish entertainment for the Emperor and his court, and more especially for the ladies who, from their recluse mode of life, are easily diverted with any kind of amusement, however childish. We find from Mr. Barrow, that a puppet-show was one species of entertainment given to Lord Macartney and his suite at the Emperor’s palace of Gehol in Tartary.