Gymkhana races of the HongKong Polo Club - the Fai-Tee Stakes [caption title]

London.: The Graphic. March 15,1890.. Engraving 15.1 x 22.6 cm (plus caption) on a trimmed newspaper leaf (slightly toned), the images in very good condition. Engraving redolent of colonial Hong Kong from a sketch by an engineer of the China Squadron Charles E. Eldred (the Hong Kong Almanack for 1891 lists him as being aboard the British vessel Victor Emmanuel). The Hong Kong Polo Club also had strong military ties (as the original commentary attests below), the Secretary of the Club was a Staff Major Fletcher of the Royal Artillery.

"This meeting took place on November 28th, having been post­ poned on account of bad weather. The Chinese coolies were much interested in the bagpipes of the Argyle and Sutherland High­landers, probably because to their ears the sound bears a very close resemblance to that produced by a common Chinese instrument, something like a flageolet. Within the enclosure almost the only people not English were the Chinese chair-coolies and the mah-Joos (grooms). The chair-coolies cluster outside the Grand Stand, the balcony of which is occupied chiefly by ladies. The professional coolies were naturally highly interested in the Chair Races, which were the most amusing events in the programme. In the Fai-Tee Stakes the gentlemen amateurs appeared in regular coolie-costume. One of the riders borrowed his bagpipes from one of the Highland pipers; but they proved his destruction, for when his team came to grief just outside the winning-post, he sat on the ground playing his pipes, and deafening himself to the shouts of the judges, who were endeavouring to inform him that he had not passed the winning-post. In our picture the pipers have been accidently omitted.-Our engraving is from a sketch by Mr. Charles E. Eldred, H.M.S. Cordelia, Hong Kong." ("The Graphic" March 15, 1890)

From the Estate of the late collector and scholar Arthur Hacker. .