THE ENGLISHMAN AND THE FAR EAST.

Otago Witness, Issue 2056, 20 July 1893, Page 41

THE ENGLISHMAN AND THE FAR EAST.

Magnificent club houses in the far Eastern colonies of Eastern Britain afford a meeting ground for tiffin in the middle of ( the day, for billiards and smoking when the day's work is over.

Some of these institutions, as at Shanghai, Hongkong, and Singapore, are as Veil furnished with English newspapers and periodicals as any of the palaces of Pall Mall. In his passion for games, which keeps him healthiest of all the foreign settlers in the East, while the German grows fat and the Frenchman withers, the Englishman plays lawn tennis under a tropical sun ; he has laid out golf links at Hongkong- and Chef v ; cricket matches are as frequent and cite as keen an interest as the doings of a country team at Home; nay, I have even heard of football and hockey at Singapore, within 70 miles of the equator. A racecourse must be constructed outside every town where there is a sufficient settlement ; the annual race meeting, in which the owner frequently buys or breeds, trains, and rides his own ponies, is one of the events of the year, and the winner of the Hongkong or Shanghai "Derby" enjoys a more than ephemeral renown. On festive occasions dances reunite the sexes ; and, where it is not too hot, riding is a favourite recreation.

The domestic environments of life are not less reminiscent of the old country.

The exterior of the house conforms to climatic needs, and spreads itself out in airy verandahs; but the furniture is not seldom imported direct from Home. The national love for neatness and decorum appears in the private grounds, the Iwnds, and public gardens of the cities where the English are in the ascendant; and were every other mark of British influence erased to-morrow it would always remain a marvel how from a scorching rock had been evolved the Elysian graces of Hongkong.— George Ourzon, in the National Review.