Drawing by william alexander, draughtsman of the macartney embassy to china in 1793. A group of chinese common people playing dice, including a husbandman with a hoe, and a boater with a metal gong to guide the trackers and warn the incoming canal boats in the foreground. Alexander noted that the chinese were addicted to gaming, near everyone carried a pack of cards, or a set of dice. Cock-fighting, quail-fighting, and grillae-fighting (a large species of grasshopper) were also popular. Image taken from the costume of china, illustrated in forty-eight coloured engravings, published in london in 1805. Date: circa 1800.
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